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T'HE 



MOrIlL LAW: 

Jfe. SERIES £F 

PRACTICAL SERMONS 

ON THE 

DECALOGUE, 

OR 

PKEACHEB IN EMMANUEL CHURCH, 

COLOMA, CALIFORNIA, 

BY THE 

REV, DAVID F. MACDONALD, A. M., 

OF THE 

PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



SACRAMENTO: 

JAME3 ANIH0>'Y & CO:, PRINTERS, DAILY UNION OFFICE 

1 8 58. 



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INDEX. 



PASS 

Sermon I, — Introductory »».,.,,.»,.,»••,*,%.*«»%%»•,%•••....... 1 



Sermon II, — The First Commandment. , . . . , . 9 

Sermon III.— -The Second Commandment . 19 

Sermon IV.— The Third Commandment , 30 

Sermon V.— " " " (Continued)... 38 

Sermon VI.— The Fourth Commandment 4S 

Sermon VII.— The Fifth Commandment ...» , 62 

Sermon VIII.— " " " (Continued).... T2 

Sermon IX. — The Sixth Commandment . '. 83 

Sermon X. — The Seventh Commandment 91 

Sermon XI. — " ". " (Continued) 103 

Sermon XII.— The Eighth Commandment , 116 

Sermon XIII.— The Ninth Commandment 129 



Sermon XIV.— The Tenth Commandment t ... 141 



PREFACE. 



The only object the writer of tins book bad in getting the following 
sermons printed, was to raise money to pay a church debt. He loiows 
full well that they are very ordinary productions ; and that they are noth- 
ing in sum and substance but what the reader may find in any writer upon 
the law. They were prepared in a hurry — ho the reader will read and 
examine in charity. 



SERMON 



I. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Text — Exodus xx, 1 : " And God spake all these ivords, saying? 

My Brethren : There are two great branches of duty, about which 
all believers in Christianity generally agree, as being necessary to salva- 
tion, viz : Faith and Obedience, or to believe and to do. These two 
branches of the christian's duty are only distinguishable in idea, not in 
reality ; for in act, in intention, and tendency, they are one and the same 
thing. There are, generally speaking, but few important differences 
amongst those who are in earnest about duty, with regard to the essentials 
of Faith — What must be believed ; and also with regard to the essentials 
of Obedience — What ought to be practiced. Hence it may seem useless 
to say any thing, either of Faith or Obedience, since they are so widely 
and accurately known. Yet because man is not blessed or made happy, 
by a mere barren knoAvledge of his duty, without a due and hearty prac- 
tice of the same, but by knowledge followed by practice, we must therefore, 
notwithstanding the task may seem useless, say things which have often 
been uttered before, in exposition of matters that are already known ; not 
indeed that they may be better known, but better practiced. " If ye know 
these things, happy are ye if ye do them." First we must knoto y and 
then do. 

Of Faith, as contradistinguished from Obedience, we shall say little or 
nothing in the work before us. Our task will be to discover the measure 
of Obedience, as contained in the " Moral Law," without which Faith is 
dead and unprotitable. That measure is reduced, as we all know, to one 
comprehensive code of laws, recorded in the chapter to which the text is 
a preface. " Gcd spake all these words." Before proceeding to the 
exposition of the " words " spoken, it is highly becoming and important 



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that we should lay down some brief rules, as so many general guides to 
the explanation and understanding of this short and graphic collection of 
laws. 

The Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, consisting of what is called 
the " Moral Law," was first promulgated to the Jews, by God himself ; 
but He, by no means, intended that it should be binding upon that people 
alone. The Jews were the especial people, who lived under the Old Testa- 
ment dispensation ; hence it was proper that these writings should be 
primarily and particularly addressed to them. We find that when the 
"fullness of time" had come, this law was delivered to both Jews and 
Gentiles ; more fully expounded, and more perfectly declared by Christ in 
the New Testament. The law being only a type, or a shadow of the 
Gospel, the Gospel is that law finally fulfilled, and clearly exemplified. 
Hence the Church, as the visible kingdom of the Gospel, has not only 
deemed it expedient, but also essential to continue the promulgation of the 
Decalogue in her services ; since it is the sum-total or perfection of Chris- 
tian Obedience, as exemplified and expounded by our Lord in the New 
Testament, the rule alike for Jew and Gentile, bond and free. 

These laws are called the " Ten Commandments," because they have 
been usually divided into that mmiber ; and because they were originally 
delivered to Moses by God Himself, in that numerical quantity. They are 
divided into two general classes or tables — the first of which commands 
our duties to God ; and the last, those we owe our neighbor. God Himself, 
no doubt, intended this division, since He commanded Moses to prepare 
two tables of stone, on one of which He wrote the first four laws of the 
Decalogue, which comprehend our duties to God ; and on the other, the 
remaining six, which refer to those duties Ave owe our neighbor. This, 
without doubt, is the proper division, although some christians have made 
and maintain different ones. 

Some Antinomians, and other objectors to the law, maintain that the 
Decalogue is an imperfect guide to duty, because, although it is upon the 
whole, plain and explicit as to our duties to God and our neighbor, it is 
silent with respect to those we owe ourselves. There is a rule to be observed 
here. It is not that alone, we are positively and directly commanded to 
do, or not to do in these laws, whicli we are to consider binding ; but also 
what is indirectly, and by implication commanded us to observe, though 
the words be not expressed. If this be so — and most assuredly it is — then 
our duties to ourselves are laid upon us, by implication, with as much stress 
as those we owe to God and our neighbor. Hence, the Decalogue may 
safely be considered as by no means silent on this point. He who fulfills 
his duty to God and man, of necessity discharges those he owes to himself. 
We are told that the " fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," To 



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fear the Lord is the spirit of the first Table. Now, by obeying the laws 
of the first Table, a man becomes the benefited recipient of true wisdom. 
This is a bounden duty as well as a great privilege and blessing. Hence, 
by fearing God, which, when properly understood, is the sum-total of our 
duty to Him, we discharge duties we owe to ourselves. 

To love our neighbor as ourselves, is the spirit of the second Table. 
Obedience to this plain and universal law, will gain a thousand sure and 
sublime promises — will insure the blessedness that attends the living charity, 
which loves to give and to do good. To hate our neighbor and abandon 
charity, is nothing more than to deprive ourselves of hope in the ever- 
lasting promises of heaven, and to lose a blessedness, beyond description 
felicitous and glorious. Surely this is to be guilty of the most abandoned 
and flagrant dereliction of the highest and most imperative duties we owe 
to ourselves. But to love our neighbor, and exercise charity, is the fulfill- 
ment of them. 

If we take the first commandment, we will discover that duties to our- 
selves are implied in the expressed law, " Thou shalt have none other Gods 
but me." Our acceptance of Him, and His of us, depend upon conditions 
— our own faithfid and earnest efforts and endeavors to fulfill the whole 
law with respect to our neighbor and ourselves. In fact, the faithful 
discharge of these several duties, is necessarily involved in the command- 
ment itself. " Thou shalt have none other Gods but me." Hence, we may 
fairly conclude, that the law is not silent on the duties we owe ourselves ; 
for these are inseparably connected, and naturally included in those we 
owe God and our neighbor. In fact, they mutually implicate each other. 
The two Tables are, therefore, a full and a perfect law to all men, as they 
are perfected and exemplified in the Gospel. 

There is a very important division of these laws, to which I must direct 
your attention. This consists, not in distinguishing the parties to whom 
our duties are to be discharged. It separates the laws themselves into two 
particular classes, which look to the nature and extent of their obligations, 
making one set conditional and the other unconditional. They are called, 
respectively, positive and negative ; i. e., those which demand obedience 
only, under certain circumstances, in certain places, and at certain times, 
and those which demand obedience under all circumstences, in all places, 
and at all times. One class tells us what we are to do ; the other what we 
are not to do. The positive or conditional is as eternally binding upon 
those who come under its obligation, as is the negative or unconditional. 
Certain circumstances, and places, and times, may, indeed, relieve the ob- 
ligation to observe the former portion ; yet it is as unconditional as the 
negative the moment the obligation becomes just and proper. Take, for 
example, the positive command which relates to the honoring of our father 



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and mother. The obligation, so far as it holds us to treat our natural pa- 
rents with due respect, at once gives way to the circumstance or fact of 
our having no father or mother to honor. To those who have no natural 
parents living, this command ceases its obligation as to the thing positively 
or generally expressed ; yet it will remain in full force, even over them, so 
long as they may stand in certain relations to other men, who, in any 
sense or degree, will occupy the room of parents. A combination of cir- 
cumstances may also do away with the obligation of the command with 
respect to the Sabbath — i. e., as to Sunday or the particular day of rest 
after six of labor ; yet the obligation stands good with respect to the 
Sabbatical proportion, which, indeed, all men, in almost all circumstances, 
are enabled to observe. In fact, the positive portion of the law puts us 
under as eternal an obligation as does the negative, whenever these condi- 
tions exist. The negative commandments, on the other hand, take no 
account of condition. They make no compromise whatever; unless, 
indeed, in such cases as idiocy, insanity, or the like. Their obligations are 
perpetual and unchangeable ; on no ground or occasion whatever can an 
infringement of them be justified or excused. No circumstance, time or 
place can possibly excuse adultery, theft, murder, covetousness, or idolatry, 
although they may somewhat mitigate them. Our obligations in regard 
to these sins are as eternal as the pillars of heaven itself — -more steadfast 
than the round world — more endurable than the outspread firmament- 
unchangeable as the throne of God. 

There is a peculiarity in this division which we must observe. The 
positive and the negative mutually include or involve each other. In 
fact, every positive includes a negative, and every negative a positive. For 
instance, my profession is the ministry of the Gospel. Here is a positive ; 
but it includes the consequent negative, that it is not the law or military. 
Again, my profession is not the latter. Here is a negative ; but it in- 
volves a positive ; I mean to say that it is something else, and that that 
something else is the ministry. This statement will hold good with 
every positive and negative. The negative commandment which prohibits 
theft—" Thou shalt not steal " — includes the positive, " Provide all things 
honestly ; " " Thou shalt do no murder," the same with respect to those 
positive precepts which teach us to abstain from shedding innocent blood. 
" Thou shalt not commit adultery " commands the same with respect to 
the multifarious positive injunctions which oblige us to be pure in desire 
and act. You may here see negative commandments including positive. 
Kow, take one or more of the positive. " Honor thy father and thy 
mother," &c, is the same as if it read, thou shalt not dishonor them. 
" Keep holy the Sabbath day," &c, is saying nothing more than thou shalt 
not do any manner of work therein. Here you have positive commandments 



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including negative. When, therefore, God commands us to do something, 
we are to understand Him also as forbidding us to do anything contrary 
to that something which is commanded to be done. And when he com- 
mands us not to do a certain thing, we are also to understand Him as 
commanding us to do whatever is contrary to the thing forbidden. In 
other words, when God commands a duty to be performed, He forbids 
whatsoever is contrary thereto to be done by us. Again, when He forbids 
anything to be donej He does thereby positively require us to fulfill the 
opposite duty implied, as well as to avoid the sin which is expressly taken 
notice of. To make it clearer: when God says, "Thou shalt do no 
murder," we are not merely to understand Him as forbidding us to take 
away life unlawfully, by shooting, stabbing, poisoning, or such like, but 
also as commanding us to do what is quite the contrary — to love our 
neighbor, to cherish and preserve his life, his person, health and property. 
Thus, at one and the same time, we are commanded not to do and to do, 
in the same breath : not to do, by abstaining from murder, or anything 
that may be referred to it ; and to do, by exercising love, charity and 
kindness. " Thou shalt keep holy the Sabbath day." In this law we are 
commanded to do and not to do, in the same breath : to do, by spending 
the Sabbath in a way suited to its holy purposes ; not to do, by withhold- 
ing our hands from all secular or ordinary labor on that day. 

To these peculiarities in the law we should pay strict attention, since it 
cannot be fairly understood, as it is proposed to us, unless these are taken 
into account. 

There are several general rules laid down by learned divines, which are 
intended to be used in the exposition as well as right practice of the Dec- 
alogue. The spirit of the more important may be given as follows. Each 
commandment is general, therefore exceedingly comprehensive. All 
particulars comprehended under the general, or that may be rightly and 
fairly referred to it, are to be considered and believed to be true and 
proper parts of the commandment itself. And not only all the particu- 
lars which are included directly, and of course under the general, but also 
all such as may be properly dependent upon it, or may be fairly and rea- 
sonably deduced therefrom or referred thereto, are to be considered as so 
many true and proper parts of the commandment itself. In other words, 
all such particulars as are directly dependent upon the general command, 
or can with reason and justice be deduced therefrom, should and must be 
deemed as included in the obligation which pervades the general law. 
Thus, when we are commanded not to be guilty of adultery, the precept is 
not only against the one isolated act, or sin perfected in that, which is 
denominated adultery, but also against all acts partaking of its nature — all 
temptations which would endanger its commission — all means whereby 



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the act is hastened or accomplished, and all things which would in any 
wise tend to it. Fornication is nothing less than adultery — in act, in 
intention, in nature — and, in its consequences, is sometimes more cruel 
and desolating ; yet it is not expressly forbidden, or even mentioned, in the 
general law ; but it is, without doubt, included in it, under the compre- 
hensive term, adultery. The same may be said of all unclean thoughts 
and desires; for they can all be referred to the general thing that is 
expressly prohibited. Also all unchaste and immodest actions and libidi- 
nous expressions ; all passionate looks and wanton behavior ; unseemly and 
indecent clothing ; all manner of uncleanness whatever ; all lascivious- 
ness, either of thought, word or deed ; the impassioned and sparkling eye 
of the envious ; the burnings and sighings of the lewd and criminal heart ; 
in fact, everything which would approach the thing forbidden is included 
in the law forbidding. But this is not all. Everything which would lead 
to the crime forbidden, even the most remote means, or cause and incite- 
ment to its accomplishment ; such as high and extravagant living, which 
strengthens and excites the passions ; rich, soft and delicate clothing ; 
indulgence in unchaste and voluptuous imaginations ; wanton and corrupt- 
ing conversations ; everything is really prohibited, which would endanger 
our obedience to that which is generally expressed in the law — which 
would tempt or incite us to approach the forbidden thing or destroy the 
continence which beseems the children of a pure and jealous God. 

The spirit of the second rule to be observed in the proper understanding 
of the Decalogue may be thus expressed : when there is any duty expressly 
stipulated and inculcated, and when any sin is pointedly forbidden, we 
must consider ourselves fully obligated to employ every means in our 
power to fulfill the duty inculcated and to avoid the sin prohibited. When 
we are commanded not to steal, we must also use all means to preserve 
honesty, which is the duty stipulated ; and, by so doing, we will always 
be instant in eschewing dishonesty, which is the sin prohibited. The pro- 
hibition against theft calls to tfie employment of a thousand things, as so 
many means which are conducive to what is contrary to it, viz : honesty. 
Hence we are not merely commanded to abstain from stealing, but also to 
live within our means ; to labor honestly, if our circumstances require us 
to labor ai all ; to avoid extravagance ; to abstain from all fraud and 
chicanery in our transactions ; to look to our neighbor's rights ; to culti- 
vate and befriend truth ; to keep company with the honest and reputable ; 
to flee from the gambling table ; to live in sobriety and frugality ; to cast 
away strife, hatred, malice, envy and covetousness ; to avoid all manner of 
excess, such as drunkenness, surfeiting and feasting, expensive dressing, 
&c, &c. ; to have no dishonest familiars, nor cultivate any intercourse or 
acquaintance with such ; to be careful and diligent in all our lawful avo- 



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cations ; not to be idle or dissolute, but to avoid whatever inight cause or 
tempt us to an infringement of tliat which is commanded us. This is a 
very important rule to be observed, and it ought to be continually present 
with us. 

But there is another which we must notice, and it will be the last, 
although many others might well be stated here. When God commands 
us to do anything as a duty, or forbids us to do anything as a sin, we are 
to consider ourselves obligated to incite, encourage and assist other men, 
in every possible and proper way and by all the available means in our 
power, to perform what is commanded them to do. We are also bound 
to discourage, thwart and deter them, in every reasonable and just way, 
and by all lawful and proper means, from doing that which is forbidden. 
By doing this, we discharge, in a measure, the duties we owe our God and 
our neighbor ; but, by neglecting it, we become not only guilty of a direct 
intrenchment upon God's law ; we not only stain the character which that 
law would impress upon ourselves, as children of God, but we harden other 
men in sin and become ourselves real partakers in their iniquity, however 
enormous or abominable it may be, in as much as we give our counte- 
nance thereto. This rule teaches us that we are sternly prohibited from 
aiding or abetting other men, in their sins, in any manner or way what- 
ever. We are to take care that we put no temptation in their path ; never 
give any countenance to their evil deeds, either by approving of them or 
by passing over them in silence ; we are not to excuse or wink at their 
transgressions, nor to mock or make light of them ; for " fools make a 
mock at sin." We are not to extenuate or conceal their criminalities ; 
but, on the contrary, we are to rebuke sin by our example and precept, 
wherever, whenever, and in whomsoever we may meet it. This is cer- 
tainly a rule of the highest importance ; for men are very apt to conclude 
that, if they themselves fulfill the laAv to the best of their ability, they do 
sufficient — they meet all requirements ; and that anything over and above 
this is a thankless struggle or a work of supererogation. 

There is, my brethren, a great deal more, both in the measure and man- 
ner of that obedience which is required of us, than hundreds around us 
would at first suppose. Men generally Avill make a measure for them- 
selves, and will obey God after that measure, or not obey him at all. They 
will also adopt a manner equally as shortcoming and as unacceptable as 
their measure, and after that manner they will serve God, come what will. 
Men will, in the hurry and strife of this passing life, pick up crude and 
clashing notions of Avhat is required of them, under the soul-destroying 
impression that God is easily satisfied or that He is easily cheated into an 
approval of a counterfeit, dishonorable and unprofitable obedience. But, 
oh, how caretul should each reasonable and immortal being be, while the 



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harvest is not yet past, nor the summer yet ended— while he is yet blessed 
with time and opportunity, to obey well, i. e., to discover, not only the 
manner of his obedience, but also the measure of it. If " Faith be sitting 
at Jesus' feet, and Obedience running to do His will," how anxious should 
we be to know what that is which is taught at the feet of Jesus and that 
which we ought to believe and hold fast ! How watchful, how eager, 
how importunate should we be, while " running to do His will," to know 
what that will is — to measure its length, its height and depth — how fast, 
how slow, and when, and where we ought to run ! We must, certainly, 
sooner or later, come boldly up to the inquiry ; but not until then can we 
comprehend its difficulty and precariousness. 

It is said that, if men should expend one-half of the pains and energy 
which they employ in amassing riches, or in securing influence and power, 
on the noble work of becoming proper and intelligent Christians — servants, 
who would not only know their Master's will but be ready to do it — we 
.should soon have a world of good sound Christians. I doubt it not ; at 
all events, we would have no reason to utter the oft-repeated complaint 
that hundreds and thousands who have lived all their lives under the sound 
and teachings of the Gospel have yet to learn its very rudiments, and are 
all but totally ignorant of its simplest and most fundamental principles. 
But men will not labor in this work, deeming those things but a small 
consolation in time, which have blessed the redeemed of God with imper- 
ishable glory in eternity. 

If the world were less wise in its own conceit — if men who boast of 
knowledge would condescend to begin to learn anew — if they once could 
be brought to doubt for once, that they might believe for ever, all the 
words which " God spake," all the providences in which he remembers 
and visits man, all His dark things would no longer be misunderstood ; 
in all things He would be found infinitely wiser than man. 

Let us, therefore, who are come together to learn the words which He 
spoke while the thunders shook the everlasting Mount and the fires illu- 
mined the sacred height — let us, I say, be prepared to study these words, 
in all humility and all conscience. 



SERMON II. 



THE FIRST COMMANDMENT, 



Text — Exodus xx, 3 : " Thou shalt have none other Gods but Me." 

This is the first law of the great "moral code;" sublimely graphic, 
fearfully comprehensive ; simple, yet invested with awful authority ; calm, 
yet surrounded with mysterious terrors. It is introduced to our consider- 
ation by a most sublime and sententious preface : " I am the Lord thy 
God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of 
bondage." There are included, in this introduction to the law to the 
Jews, the two great motives for their obedience. 1st, the Lord was their 
God, and none else. 2d, He it was who delivered them from the power 
of their enemies, and from the bondage of Egypt. Since the Jew is a 
type of the Christian, this preface also includes the two great motives of 
the Christian's obedience. The Church being the New Jerusalem, its 
members are the spiritual Israel ; " they have become the children of God, 
by faith in Jesus Christ ; " they are Jews — not outwardly, " as by the cir- 
cumcision of the flesh, but inwardly, by the circumcision of the heart." 
Hence, the spiritual seed of Abraham are not only moved to the obedience 
of the law by the stupendous consideration of having the Lord for their 
God, but also by the mighty deliverance wrought for them, of which the 
Jewish was a faint yet significant shadow. " By the law, of which Moses 
was the mediator, the children of Israel, according to the flesh, engaged, 
with a view to the promised inheritance of the land of Canaan, to yield 
implicit obedience to the divine will." But, under the Gospel covenant, as 
ratified and sealed by the blood of Jesus— as revealed and inculcated by 
Himself and Apostles, Christians promise implicit obedience to the same 
will or law, as perfected in the Gospel, "with a view to the promise of an 
everlasting inheritance," of which the earthly Canaan was but a type. To 
the spiritual Jew, then, the Lord is God, by a new and a far better cov- 
enant. His will is bound upon the Christian with double chains ; for He 
makes him an heir to eternal and glorious promises — to benefits and pos- 
2 



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sessions which eclipse the most valuable in the old. A deliverance has 
been wrought out for him, from the power of sin and the chains of the 
grave — the oath which God swore of old to his father Abraham being 
remembered and fully redeemed, " That he would grant unto us, that we, 
being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without 
fear, in holiness and righteousness, all the days of our life." As it was in 
the covenant of Moses so is it in the Christian ; God and man being the 
contracting parties, " the benefits are wholly on one side, and the obliga- 
tions on the other." Hence, since the benefits showered upon the Chris- 
tian are infinitely greater than those promised or bestowed upon the Jew, and 
the obligations on the part of God to the Christian, infinitely higher than 
to the Jew, the grounds and motives of the Christian to obedience must be 
raised in the same ratio. Thus the law, unchanged and unrepealed as it 
stands and will ever stand before us, demands from us, as Christians, if 
possible, a more implicit, a more careful, and a more perfect fulfillment 
than it did from the Jew. Let us, therefore, being persuaded of this, pro- 
ceed with this brief exposition of the law which so closely concerns us. 

" Thou shalt have none other Gods, but me." The phraseology of this 
law, as, indeed, of all the others, is exceedingly peculiar ; and the pecu- 
liarity consists in its comprehensiveness and brevity. 1st, we are to have 
the Lord for our God ; and, 2d, we are to have none other, either in com- 
pany with Him, or beside Him, as ours. We are to have a God, and that 
God is to be the Lord, who ought to, and must be the only object of our 
thoughts — our love, our homage, and our worship. Here we have a true, 
worthy, and legitimate object of Faith and Worship ; in other words, it 
inculcates pure and undefiled religion, as contradistinguished from infidel- 
ity and idolatry. The rest forbids us either to have, with, without, or 
besides the Lord, any God or Gods, for all such are unworthy objects of 
Faith or divine Worshij). 

But what is it to have the Lord for our God ? " To have " is a very 
comprehensive expression, subject to many definitions and interpretations, 
appropriate to, and useful in the exposition of this command. Two or 
three will answer our present purpose. 

First, then, we must have God as the highest and continual object of our 
thoughts and meditations. We must think of an object as becomes its 
nature, character and dignity. As this command binds us to the duty of 
having the Lord as the subject of our thoughts, we must regard Him as 
possessing all the infinite perfections and attributes which His revealed 
character discloses. This revelation presents us not with a God who is a 
mere metaphysical abstraction, as some would make Him out to be, but as 
One invested with the tremendous attribute of Eternity. He is an eternal 
Being, who existed, alone and independent, back — far back of the millions 



of ages which make up the dull and starless night of the unmeasurable 
past ; who lived alone, in uncommunicated glory, perfection, and majesty, 
long, long before the voice of His omnipotent Spirit disturbed the eternal 
silence that slept over the shoreless bosom of chaos — that time immeasura- 
ble, before the sweet vicissitude of night and day gladdened either man or 
angel; long, long before the voice of war and rebellion was heard in 
heaven, or ere the divine faggot blazed in the unsearched profounds of 
hell ; long before the pillars of heaven itself were reared on high, or the 
firmament, with its bright host, was uncurtained to the light of day ; long, 
long before His courts were peopled with His winged legions, or ere the 
universe felt the creative touch of His hand. " Before the mountains were 
brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were fashioned, He is God 
from everlasting to everlasting — the First and the Last, and besides whom 
there is no God. He was, and is, and shall be world without end." 

Second, We must think of Him as an infinite, omnipresent God. He 
fills, with His awful presence, the limitless universe, the confines of which 
may appear to us a boundless and a desert waste. The heaven — yea, the 
heaven of heavens cannot contain Him, nor can the shadow of the earth 
mantle His glory. To Him hell stands naked and uncovered. His foot- 
prints are on the sullen rock and barren, unpeopled shore. His chariot- 
wheels roll in the darkest and most secret bowels of the deep. The grave 
cannot hide from His presence, nor can the wings of the morning carry us 
away to a spot where His hand is not seen nor His voice heard. Ascend, 
ascend, for ever and ever, but, behold, His presence is still far, far beyond 
you. Plunge down into the thickest glooms of eternal night — you find 
Him even there. " Whither shall we go from thy spirit ? or whither shall 
we flee from thy presence ? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there ; 
if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there. If we take the wings of 
the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall 
thy hand lead us, and thy right hand hold us. If we say, surely the 
darkness shall cover us, even the night shall be light about us. Yea, the 
darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the day ; the 
darkness and the light are both alike to thee." 

Third, We must think of Him as incomprehensible. His garments are 
mysteries. The secrets of His wisdom and counsels are impenetrable to 
created eyes and understandings. The armies of heaven and the inhabi- 
tants of the earth may sit in council together, but the mystery and infini- 
tude of His majesty and glory cannot be measured. The Cherubim and 
Seraphim, in an extacy of wonder and adoration, bow before His throne, 
crying out, for ever and ever, " Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Sabaoth ; 
heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy glory." Who is He ? 
" Who can, by searching, find out God \ " Sublime and eternal Being, 



12 



thou art indeed alone in the mystery of thy glory and majesty ! The 
fullness thereof is participated in by none, communicated to none. Dark, 
unfathomable, infinite, incomprehensible Being, thou alone understandest 
Thyself, thy ways and thy thoughts ! All else see but a ray of thee, and 
they are lost in its ineffable effulgence and completely dazzled by its 
brightness. " Canst thou by searching find out God ? Canst thou find 
out the Almighty unto perfection ? It is as high as heaven ; what canst 
thou do ? deeper than hell ; what canst thou know? The measure thereof 
is longer than the earth and broader than the sea. If he cut off, and shut 
up, or gather together, then who can hinder Him ? " 

Fourth, He is an immortal aud invisible spirit — " the King of Kings 
and Lord of Lords " — the Author of life — the centre and source of immor- 
tality — the only possessor of endless life, which He imparts to His crea- 
tures as the fruits of His promises, He dwells in that light, which no man 
can approach, for its source is in the throne of Him " whom no man hath 
seen at any time," and whom " no man can see and live." He is a spirit, 
immortal and invisible, demanding that all should worship Him in " spirit 
and truth." He is that invisible Spirit and immortal God who demanded 
of the Jews, by the prophet, " Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and 
not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places, that I shall 
not see him ? Do not I fill heaven and earth ? saith the Lord." 

Fifth, He is Almighty — the Creator and Preserver of the universe — 
"the God of all flesh," to whom all things were, are, and ever will be pos- 
sible. He made all things, visible and invisible, of things in heaven and 
in earth. He is the Father of spirits, in whom all move, live, and have 
their being — the Judge of all men, who holds under control and sustains 
all the concerns of this boundless universe, and with whom are the issues of 
life and death. Listen to his words, uttered of old : " Hear, 0 Israel, the 
Lord our God is one Lord," " and there is none other besides Him." He 
is the Father of us all, who hath given us one faith and one baptism. 

Yi e must not only think of God as thus described, but as a father to us 
by right of creation and conservation. Consider, too, the tender claims He 
has on us by the right of adoption in His Son Jesus Christ, who hath pur- 
chased for us " the means of grace and the hope of glory " — the Jvnthor 
and Finisher of our salvation — with whom redemption originated, and by 
whom it was so wisely and wonderfully perfected. He is the perfection of 
tenderness and love ; One whose very Name is Love and Mercy, for His 
mercy is over all His works, and His love is manifested to all men in the ines- 
timable gift of His only begotten Son — emptying heaven itself, as it were, of 
its glory, that man might enjoy its saving light and know the way to ever- 
lasting felicity, tie is our Judge — the Master of the household, who must, 
ere long, come to call us to an account of our stewardships and award us 



13 



the meed of our true service or of our ingratitude and treachery. These, 
my brethren, are but a few of the ways in which we are commanded to 
have the Lord God as the subject of our thoughts and meditations — only 
a few of the many ways in which He has condescended to offer Himself to 
us as the rock of our faith, the object of our best hopes and fears, of our 
love and praise. 

We notice another way in which we are commauded to have the Lord 
for our God. He must be the object, the only object of all our worship, 
service and homage. As in thinking of Him so is it in worship. Every 
subject worthy thereof must be served in a manner suitable to its nature 
and dignity. A respect must be paid consistent with its character ere it 
can be served with propriety. We say nothing here of that curious doc- 
trine which identifies all kinds of service with a kind of worship. When 
we have the Lord God as the object or the Being to whom we must pay 
homage, all the services therein implied, whether obedience, prayer, praise, 
fear, hope, or faith, can at once, without fear of error, be resolved into 
worship proper. But worship, of which we are speaking, in order to be 
acceptable, proper, and consistent, must be in keeping with God's nature 
and character, as revealed to us. God being One, our worship of Him 
must be undivided and entire. The heart, while thus engaged, must have 
no seam or rent. As the Saviour's coat, when lots were cast for it, became 
the sole property of the winner, so the heart, in God's worship, must not 
be given partly to the world and partly to God. He being One Almighty 
Spirit, the soul, the mind and the body must go together, in their entire 
strength, with their utmost force, will and love, to pay Him that true and 
spiritual worship which the nature of the case necessarily demands. 
Nothing of the carnal, nothing of the worldly may enter into it, for such 
would offend the majesty of His Spirit, as being destructive of that service 
which He can receive. He being an unchangeable Spirit, our worship of 
Him must be permanently and thoroughly consistent ; to-day, to-morrow, 
and until the end, it must not vary. Our public worship must harmonize 
with our private ; the same spirit must pervade it under all circumstances, 
in all places, and at all times ; because He is the same yesterday, to-day, 
and forever. It must aim alway to please Him, for He is Almighty, 
therefore able to punish ; it must have especial respect unto His glory and 
honor, for He cannot be dishonored, and of His glory He is extremely 
jealous. It must be conducted and continued according to His will, for 
His will is Supreme, and that of man a blind guide. Being the perfection 
of wisdom and intelligence, our worship of Him must be intelligent and 
reasonable ; we must pray and sing to Him with understanding and with 
a good heart and faithful conscience, because he cannot be mocked. 
Being the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, our worship of Him must be 



14 



lminble and sincere — our attitude and manner becoming the great differ- 
ence between God and man ; it, too, must be calm and steady, for His 
tabernacles are habitations of peace, where all tumult is hushed, all storms 
calmed. In a word, God must be the subject of our worship in no other 
sense than as the Gospel reveals Him to us and as our enlightened con- 
sciences would dictate. Hence, the sum total of the duty which this 
branch of the commandments requires of us is this : " To believe in God, 
to love and fear Him with all our mind and strength, to honor Him, to 
trust in Him, to call upon Him and obey Him." 

The first branch, then, of this law thus requires us to have the Lord for 
our God. But, secondly, it commands us to have none other God or 
Gods, with, without, or besides Him. This not only covers what has 
already been considered, but also, either indirectly or by implication, for- 
bids Atheism in all its features — all infidelity, absolute (if, indeed, such a 
thing can be) and partial— all skepticism, either practical or speculative — 
all such doctrines as really oppose, in part, or in whole, the fundamentals 
of the Christian faith, and all the multitude of latitudinarian heterodoxes 
which clash with "the form of sound words once delivered to the saints" 
and to the careful guardianship of God's spouse — the Church. 

You may, probably, think it strange that a law which presupposes the 
non-existence of any but one God should be promulgated to prohibit man 
from having that which does not, and, from the very nature of things, 
could not exist. But this is by no means strange ; for, at the time it was 
promulgated, the sin of idolatry (a sin which, you know, consists in the 
worship of false Gods to the exclusion of the true) was very prevalent, not 
only among the Gentiles but also among the Jews. Hence, although the 
commandment is grounded upon the eternal truth, that there is only One 
God, yet the Lord deemed its promulgation necessary to the suppression of 
a sin which militates against this truth, which was, and is, and ever will be 
self-evident to all well-thinking and properly disposed men. 
- But this law presupposes another truth, that covers man with shame 
and guilt : man will devise ways and means, of himself, to substitute false 
Gods for the true. To meet this detestable sin was this law principally 
given. For illustration — we will take money, which, I am sorry to say, 
amongst us has already gained the name of God, viz : " the almighty dol- 
lar? Do we not see that men think of it as they should think of God ? 
Do they not worship it in fact, although not in form, as God ought to be 
worshipped ? Are they not governed by it ? Do they not trust in it and 
to it ? Do they not call upon it, serve for it and serve it, believe in it, 
bless it, weep when deprived of it, rejoice when possessed of it — spend their 
whole time, their strength, their faculties, their energies, in its pursuit ? 
Do they not pray to it, and sing songs to its praise ? In a word, do not 



15 



men love it, with all their heart, with all their mind, with all their soul, 
and with all their strength ? Now, in this way, anything may be substi- 
tuted in our hearts for God. And how many things are thus substituted 
for Him ! not alone money, but the endless varieties of the vanities which 
make up the fashion of this w r orld. But the worship or the service paid 
to the thing, whatever it may be, by no means makes it God, but substi- 
tutes it for God to the worshipper. The commandment merely supposes 
the possibility — nay, the great probability of men becoming so blind- and 
debased as to pay their love and homage to worthless and senseless objects. 
Its very promulgation tells a mournful and dreadful tale : that men have, 
in all ages, sought out gods of their own invention. They will continue 
so to do until time shall be no more. 

But it presupposes something more, from which even good men are in 
danger : the possibility that a wild superstition, some favorite tenet of 
belief, some darling and carefully fostered prejudice, some curious opinion, 
some certain form of worship, certain kinds of preachers and preaching, 
certain denominational leanings, likings and hatings — and an endless vari- 
ety of other worthless and unreasonable things — may supplant the Lord 
God. in the human heart ; may receive the love, the affection, the service, 
the honor, the trust, the labors — nay, even the worship, which should be 
bestowed upon Him. This is a sin, of all others, which does the most 
despite to the honor and dignity of the great I AM — a sin which discloses 
the deepest degree of iniquity. This sin of sins is not only barely possible, 
but, alas, almost inevitable, in consequence of mans depravity. Behold, 
then, the stern and dreadful truth, that unmitigated, unqualified idolatry 
not only existed among the Jews — that people of the stiff neck and hard 
heart — but also, in a peculiar and dangerous form, amongst ourselves, a 
people who are professedly Christian. 

We must talk now about ourselves, since the few hints we have deliv- 
ered are sufficient to let us know where we stand. I by no means intended 
to give you any learned disquisitions, even if I were able. My intention 
is merely to treat each of these laws in detail, as they may apply to oiu* 
peculiar case and circumstances. Merely to say that idolatry is possible 
in our case, is to sidle up to the truth with the tardy footsteps of the 
coward. Why not come boldly up to the fact at once \ "We say that 
idolatry is here, in our very midst, and the land groans under its infernal 
weight. Can it be possible — aye, can it be a fact, that a crime which we 
imagined confined to the heathen and the pagan is committed amongst, 
or by us \ Our blindness to the truth, our insensibility to the damning 
fact, are much more than mere presumptions that God is baring His arm 
to smite us for the crime of idolatry. And is idolatry defacing our char- 
acter as a Christian people in the sight of God and the Christianized 



10 



world, while the trumpet of the Gospel is blown up and down our very 
streets ? I say it is possible ; it is the fact ; and I challenge contradiction. 
Heathendom is cursed with the /or?» as well as with the reality of idolatry. 
Here the mere form is wanting, but we are as truly cursed with the reality. 
A coppersmith of old, in order to sustain the interests of his craft, appealed 
against rising Christianity to his countrymen, saying that the temples of 
Diana were being forgotten. This is idolatry complaining of the true 
religion. But, alas, now the tune is completely changed. The men of 
God, who are jealous of their Master's honor and of the welfare of human 
souls, must reiterate the coppersmith's complaint almost word for word. 
Behold, the temples of the living God are all but forgotten ; the worship- 
pers are few and cold ; strange gods are come among us. You will say, 
" Hold, preacher ; your language is unguarded ; you are harsh and sple- 
netic, and you exaggerate." Let the blind and careless guide, let the 
superb and self-righteous Pharisee, who will pander to the vanity and 
prejudices of the people for the sake of being called Rabbi, and for the 
sake of " wine and oil," pronounce this language splenetic — I care not. 
Look for yourselves. Behold, are not our gods hung up on the wall? if 
not, do they not sleep in our coffers ? Hath not the almighty dollar more 
interest for us than an invitation of divine love, or a thundered threat of 
divine wrath ? Are not our hearts completely closed to the voice of Him 
who feeds and clothes, sustains and blesses us ? There is no use in dis- 
guising matters ; our households are fairly crammed with strange gods ; 
and no amount of teaching or warning, no style of threatening, no manner 
of persuading, can wean our affections from them. If, my brethren, it be 
otherwise, wherefore this wild tumult, this desolating tempest that hath 
riven our society into tatters ? Wherefore this cry for gold, gold, gold ? 
"Wherefore this rush to the house of pleasure, to the neglect of every thing- 
else which peradventure might lead us to God ? Why this neglect and 
disrespectful treatment of the true God's disciples ? Is it because they are 
not the devotees of Baal ? Why has the public mart superseded the holy 
temple, and the oath-ringing saloon the church ? Why has God's altar 
grown dusty, through neglect, while our desks are glazed with our daily 
worship upon them ? Why is the Bible laid by, a prey to the w r orm and 
cobweb, while the novel, the newspaper, and, above all, the ledger, are in 
constant and greedy requisition ? Why are all places resorted to, on Sun- 
day as well as other days, but the house of God ? Why is the great Name 
of the Architect of the universe mocked and made light of in our streets, 
and blasphemed in our very houses % Why is religion derided and all but 
overthrown among us ? ' Why are honesty and confidence between man 
and man often completely destroyed ? Why is blasphemy so exceedingly 
rife and loose-ton gued, and why has it lost its horrors and terrors to us ? 



Do we not boast of being a Christian, a free and enlightened people t 
Why, then, have theft, robbery, and murder become the merest incidents — 
more frequent than the accidents of fire and flood ? Why are the grave- 
yards of our cities filled with the dust of the slaughtered, and our moun- 
tains covered with the bones of the slain ? Is it, my brethren, because we 
have the Lord for our God ? Oh, vain mockery, vile presumption, imper- 
tinent pretension ! Get ye gone ; let every man to his tent ! " Ichabod, 
Ichabod ; the glory of Israel is departed ; " the ark of *the Lord is with 
the enemy ; He dwells here no more ! Baal, your God, is pursuing the 
chase upon your mountains, and you dream of safety while he seems 
awake ; but soon he shall lay him down to sleep, to wake no more. And 
when the day of your calamity cometh, his ear shall become an ear of 
stone to your cry, and his eye an eye of brass to your supplicating tear. 
Show me a society disorganized — a community stained by all nameless 
and hideous enormities. Let my ear be assailed by the curse of the op- 
pressed and the maledictions of the ruined ; let me hear the alarm of mid- 
night, as well as noonday murder and assassination — the lewd howl of the 
midnight prowler and debauchee. Show me the gambling-hell, with doors 
wide open in the full light of day, and crowds rushing in and out. Point 
me to group after group of jeering idlers, to empty churches, to starving 
and distressed ministers, and to broken and abused Sundays ; to stacks of 
ill-gotten wealth, in the shape of glittering coin, and to heaps of rags, the 
wages of dissipation and crime — all in juxtaposition. Let me hear the dis- 
cordant notes of frenzied and prurient rejoicing mingle with the plaintive 
strains of want, penury and suffering, and with the startling yells of de- 
spair. Then — oh, then, I will point you to idolatry. For with such, God 
cannot dwell ; and where God is not, there must be false gods ; and where 
there are false gods, there is confusion, disorganization, darkness and 
chaos, the terrible companions of idolatry. 

But, ye recreant children of Israel, hear, I say ; yet again God speaks 
from amid the thunders and the fires of the troubled Mount, " I am the 
Lord thy God which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the 
house of bondage." Hear Him, and halt no longer between two opinions. 
Hear Him ; for he proclaims Himself this day, to be not only your God, 
if you will have Him as such, but he recalls your faded and benighted 
recollections to the stupendous fact that He is your Deliverer. As by 
magic, then, let the scene at Bethlehem, irradiated by the star, come up be- 
fore you. Let the Mount of Calvary, the tragedy of the Cross, and the 
expiring groans come up from the history of His sufferings. Let the sun 
appear darkened with pity and shame, the graves opened and the rocks 
rent ; the burial, the seal, and the armed watch ; the descent of the angel, 
the rolling away of the stone, and the Victor over hell and the grave 
3 



IS 



comiug forth from His tomb ; the ascension, the cloud as a chariot, and 
the comforting visit of the angel ; the session at the right hand of power, 
the intercession, and the gift of the Holy Spirit ; the gates of heaven thrown 
wide open, and the rays of the Sun of Righteousness and of the King of 
Glory piercing the habitations of darkness and wo, and the prince of tor- 
ments subdued and overwhelmed. Let all this awful and stupendous work 
of deliverance sweep itself before the visions of your souls, and then say if 
it be not a sufficient ground and argument why you should have the Lord 
for your God, and none besides Him \ Look again, before closing with 
your fate, on the broad array of sublime promises made to you by Him. 
Stand in front of them, even with your hearts steeled into adamant ; are 
they not beyond your brightest dreams of bliss \ Do they not outstrip 
your most lofty imaginations ? Do they not shine bright enough to turn 
the starless night, in which your panting soul dwells, into a blazing noon \ 
If then you will not receive Him as your delivering God, with all this be- 
fore you, then, then prepare to receive Him as an avenging and judging 
God. Turn the page ; trace that dark, dreadful, astounding line of threats 
which EQs own fingers have written, and which He hath sworn will not 
pass away, even should the heavens and the earth tumble into ruins. 
Read them ; treasure them ; remember them ; hang upon them ; for they 
speak of misery and sufferings which the tongue or pen of angel cannot 
portray. To-day, while he speaks, harden not your hearts, but have none 
other Gods but the Lord, u who brought us out of the land of Egypt, out 
of the house of bondage.'' 



SERMON III. 



THE SECOND COMMANDMENT. 



Text — Exodus xx, 4, 5 and 6 : " Thou shalt not make unto thee any 
graven image, or the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or 
that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth : 
Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them ; for I the Lord 
thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the 
children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me ; 
and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my 
commandments? 

My Brethren : I have already laid before you a brief exposition of 
the first law of the Decalogue ; which legislates for the " worship of God, 
and of Him only." I would fain trust that the humble, but earnest effort, 
has not been in vain. 

To-day, we listen to the second law of this great divine and moral code. 
Let us pray to Him for the spirit of fear, reverence, and understanding ; 
that our habitual apathy, coldness and ignorance, may henceforth give 
place to the spirit of obedience. 

The second commandment, though not so explicit as to the object of 
worship, is yet promulgated on the ground or strength of the first. It is 
given on the presumption that men have obeyed that, i. e., that they have 
the Lord for their God, and none besides Him ; and desire to pay Him 
alone, the particular worship stipulated. Hence, it especially legislates the 
manner of this worship, rather than the object or nature thereof. In a 
manner, this second law may be called a thora, as including the first by 
implication ; a rnisna, as being a continuation, or a kind of copy of it. 
It is a Deuteronomy, as being a repetition or recapitulation of the first, and 
as embracing a partial explanation thereof. We will therefore see, as we 
advance step by step up this wonderful ladder of obedience, that a brighter 
and still brighter beam, from the lamp of the Lord, sheds itself upon our 
souls, until the duty of entire obedience, in its object, nature and manner, 
bursts full upon our souls in its awful perfection. Each step we take, the 
nearer we draw to the habitations of the angels, where the glass through 
which we now see God darkly, will be removed from our faces. 



20 



What then, is to be the manner of this worship, which God demands in 
the law before us ? The commandment itself, by prohibiting what is 
inconsistent with tlie manner of worship proper, is a full and sufficient 
answer. 

1st. We are prohibited from making any image of God of whatever 
kind ; even should our intention be to worship Him through it, in it, or by 
it, Here is a rule without exception — a restriction upon that general rule, 
that it is the motive, the intent, or the design which constitutes an action, 
either virtuous or vicious, innocent or criminal. You will perceive that the 
strong and exclusive expression, " any," in the commandment, not only 
prohibits all images of God of whatsoever kind ; but also does away with 
every justification for them, even when grounded on the motive, intention, 
or the design of thereby worshipping God. 

God is revealed to us as possessing all the infinite attributes which are 
necessary and essential to the subsistence of the Supreme Being. We 
must, therefore, briefly enquire into the case, in order that we may see how 
utterly impossible it is that God can be worshipped, in any manner what- 
ever, either in, through, or by images ; how utterly repugnant and contrary 
to the spirit of the law, such worship should be ; how thoroughly dishonor- 
able and derogatory it would be to the nature and majesty of God, and 
therefore how awfully dangerous and destructive the practice of such 
worship would prove to ourselves. 

We will take it for granted for a moment, that we make images of God, 
with the motive only of worshipping God through or by them. God being 
omniscient, i. e., possessing the highest and fullest perfection of all wisdom 
and intelligence ; an image inanimate, having neither wisdom nor intelli- 
gence in any degree at all, and an image animate which we can choose 
though not make, having only these attributes in a very limited degree ; it 
is a simple impossibility, that a being who is omniscient, can be worthily 
and acceptably worshipped by either. The very nature of the case implies 
its absolute impossibility. An Omniscient Being must be worshipped 
immediately and not mediately, if He is to be worshiped at all. If this 
Omniscient Being should or could receive mediate worship, it would suppose 
that He could not know that He was worshipped, unless these mediums 
were supplied as means to the acquisition of His knowledge ; thus implying 
the possibility of omniscience receiving acquisitions of knowledge, which 
is a simple impossibility. But, if God should see fit to receive mediate 
worship, then from the considerations above, we may see that He would not 
only be doing, what in truth would be unworthy of and dishonorable to Him- 
self, but confessing that creatures of His own hand must supply the mediums 
through which knowledge of worship would be conveyed to Him. Hence, 
this knowledge would depend upon the will and caprice of man ; which 



21 



would at once, and forever destroy all notion or idea of omniscience. It 
is therefore impossible, we maintain, that God can receive image worship, 
since it is simply impossible for Him to do despite to any of His perfections. 
This being so, then image worship is also an impossibility ; for nothing is 
worship of God, but what He can consistently with his nature receive as 
such. This is but a rough feature of one of the many arguments which 
might be used to show the truth of our conclusion. 

But let our conclusion be right or wrong ; let the assertion that image 
worship is an impossibility, when addressed to such a Being, as is the 
Eternal Jehovah, be viewed only as an assertion, we can produce a short 
argument from Holy Scripture which puts an end to all controversy : 
6i God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him, must worship Him in spirit 
and in truth." This is the positive duty laid down in the law under con- 
sideration. Proper worship then, is that of " spirit and truth." The 
very nature of the case, therefore, demands that the creature must not only 
possess sufficient intelligence, but must have spirit to worship in spirit ; 
and knowledge of the truth, that it may worship in truth. The Being to 
be worshipped, is a Spirit, superior in every attribute to the spirit wor- 
shipping ; hence no other worship but that of the spirit of the worshipper 
can be acceptable to Him, because any other kind addressed to Him, would 
be no worship at all. But an image, as is self-evident, has no spirit ; there 
fore it of itself can neither address spirit worship to another, nor in any 
sense be a medium through which such worship can be addressed to an 
intelligent being. An image has no reason, knowledge nor understanding 
of any worship ; far less, if possible, of that kind to which " spirit and 
truth" are necessary. An image then can address no worship whatever of 
itself; and by consequence cannot be a medium, or a mean whereby others 
can worship an all knowing and all intelligent God. 

Image worship is not only an impossibility on these grounds. It is 
derogatory to the majesty and honor of the Supreme Being. In the first 
place, it is in direct opposition to His express will. In the commandment 
before us, it is sternly and unequivocally prohibited ; and the contrary thereto 
is forcibly and positively inculcated. Strange and fearful curses are attached 
to the one ; comforting and sublime promises to the other. This at once 
shows us the utter futility of attempting to worship God by images ; He 
cannot receive it because it is opposed to His revealed will ; and, as its 
reward is expressed in startling denunciations throughout holy writ, we 
learn that it is an open and heinous onslaught upon the honor of the Most 
High. This position requires but little comment ; for we know that what- 
ever runs counter to the Supreme will in this particular, assails God in 
that point, about which He expresses Himself as being extremely jealous. 
JS T o worship at all is not so frequently or so sternly denounced, as is image 



22 



worship. The one is mere disobedience — the other disobedience, accom- 
panied by mockery of God, and willful self deception. 

We now assert farther that, to make an image of God, that we may 
thereby worship Him, irrespective of all other considerations, is a superior 
way, so to speak, of dishonoring God. God the Almighty, infinite, invisible, 
eternal, omnipresent and omniscient Spirit — the Trinity in Unity and the 
Unity in Trinity, is especially and grievously dishonored, by any visible 
tangible or external shape or representation. As God, and in no other way 
can we conceive Him, and as such He has no image, no figure, no likeness, 
or similitude ; no dimension or shape whatever. He cannot therefore be 
represented in any sense whatever, by an image or images. To reduce the 
likeness of God, i. e. God Himself, to that which is his infinite opposite — an 
image or idol, the work of a weak and finite creature, presupposes and 
directly teaches that the Supreme Being is visible, finite and comprehensi- 
ble — that He is a being of parts and passions like His own creatures. 
Thus would the eternal majesty of Jehovah God be shorn of its brightest 
and most glorious rays. 

Some wise, even in their blindness, say that God made an image of Him- 
self, in that he made man ; for so say the Scriptures : and, that the Jews, 
in the days of Pontius Pilate, beheld the express image of God in the man 
Jesus, who was a conception of the Holy Ghost. Hence, they argue that 
since images were made of God, and that too by. God Himself we cannot 
be doing much wrong in following His example, by making such images 
of Him, as we are able : and, that since revelation calls upon us to worship 
Him through this express image of Him, this man Jesus, our boldness in 
worshipping God, through the images we may make of Him, cannot be 
such a heinous crime as is represented. Of course, this is the infidel and 
the scoffer with a lance in his hand thrusting at the "Rock of Ages" 
— the ignorant jeerer, entering the lists against Jehovah, with Satan as his 
Esquire, and the trumpet of hell sounding the challenge. 

"We will pass over the distinctions between " Graven images w and all 
other kinds of images, and say a few words as to how man is an image of 
God ; and how the man J esus is the express image of the Father ; for 
purposes you will easily discover. 

" In His own image created he them," is a style of expression, which I 
hesitate not to affirm, means the contrary to what the mere player upon 
words deduces from it. It means, that God created man in His own image, 
without any reference whatever to man's external shape or visible figure ; 
but to his intellectual part, which, properly speaking, has no image, shape, 
or form whatever. Since then God and the soul of man thus spoken of, 
have nothing of what we understand to be essential to an image, nor indeed 
can they, so long as they preserve their identity, which must be forever, 



23 



we must conclude that the term image, whenever it is used with reference 
to either, is figurative and peculiar. It is often employed in this way, to 
reveal to the children of one common and fallen parent, the fact that man 
was originally created in the image of God, having that perfection of inno- 
cence, which caused him, before the fall, to be a reflection of the Glory of 
his Creator. So far and no farther, can man be said to have been created 
in the image of his Creator. So far, he was really and truly in the likeness 
of God. So near and no nearer did he subsist as God does. In man's 
body then, there can be no image of God ; and if not there, there can be 
no artificial representation of Him at all ; for the external form of man gives 
us our highest and most perfect ideas of similitude and figure. " In His 
own image created He them ;" i. e. He created their souls in the subsist- 
ence of perfect innocence ; and this similitude to God in man still exists, 
though by no means in the same degree of perfection. Hence, when scrip- 
ture or divines speak of the image of God in man, we are to understand 
them as referring either to the natural or moral image. The natural 
means the faculties of the soul — the reason, understanding and will. The 
moral is the proper, or right use of these faculties, the end of which is 
holiness or innocence. The quibbling scoffer's shaft, so far then, has been 
used in vain. 

Man was created in the "image;" but the man Jesus was not created, 
but came in the " express image " of God. This entirely alters the case. 
He who was in " the form of God," came and took upon Himself " the 
form of a servant." Now, what may reasonably be asserted concerning 
the form or express image of God, may also, exegetically be asserted con- 
cerning " the form of a servant." To be in " the form of God," will 
suffer no other construction, than to subsist really as God — in fact, to be 
really and truly God. To have the express image of the omnipresent, 
omnipotent, omniscient God, is none else than to be omnipresent, omnipo- 
tent and omniscient. To subsist in these perfections is to have the " form 
of God ; " or to be God Himself ; because, God cannot subsist in any other 
form than in His attributes ; and he who subsists in them, must be God 
indeed. " He took upon Himself the form of a servant." Here exactly, 
is the same doctrine laid down with respect to the man Jesus' manhood, 
as the former sentiment declares of His Godhead." It means nothing more 
than that He became really and truly a servant, in the fashion of. man. 
He was incarnate or made in the likeness of man, that He might be in a 
capacity to serve both God and man, by dying for sinners ; and thereby 
accomplishing the redemption of the world. 

I have made this digression, to show you that God never made an image 
of Himself, in the sense advanced by the enemy of revelation ; nor did He 
sanction the worship of any image ; nor the worship of Himself in, 



24 



through, or by any image ; because, He can never be known, or seen as 
He subsists, in His perfections in any outward or substantial representation 
were this possible. God can be presented, but never represented ; and 
any passage in scripture which apparently advances the possibility of such 
representation, we will find, when fairly and reasonably construed, teaches 
the simple impossibility of the thing. Hence the utter absurdity and fool- 
ishness of any such attempt. As no one can create, or be the maker of 
any animate creature but God ; of course the images that men attempt to 
make of Him are graven or molten — at all events inanimate. This says 
virtually, that the Lord ? s essence, which cannot be participated in by any 
creature, is communicable, and communicated to that, which by nature 
cannot receive it, being utterly unworthy. If the image could, by any 
possibility, receive the essence of Deity, then it would subsist as God ; and 
we would be justified, nay it would be our bounden duty to address to it 
divine worship. This would destroy all idea of divinity, and annihilate for 
ever all hope, belief and faith. It would detract from the character of Deity, 
all that is essential to it ; and the whole completeness and perfection of 
God would be destroyed. There could be no God whatever, which is the 
hope of the fool. The attempt then to image God, either by the substitu- 
tion of an idol in His room, or by making a supposed representation of 
Him, both acts being the same in nature and tendency, is nothing less than 
to attempt to strip the Eternal of all His attributes — not the least of which 
is invisibility — and to render him an object of contempt, rather than of 
worship and adoration. This dreadful thing can indeed never be cousum- 
mated ; yet nothing can be more fraught with danger and terror than 
the bare attempt — nothing be more hurtful to those who are guilty of 
making it. Whatever would lead to it, can be excused or justified on no 
pretence, by no design, or motive whatever ; God having no similitude, 
that which would give it Him dishonors Him. What would dishonor God 
is beyond description dangerous and hurtful, for He is extremely jealous of 
that Honor. 

To be " left alone " to one's idols, i. e. to be permitted to worship and 
trust to them, is a judgment which involves the most awful and terrific 
consequences. There is no sin against divinity, which is so frequently, so 
sternly, so deliberately, and so carefully denounced and prohibited. And 
why ? Because of its extreme danger, and of the sure and sudden penal- 
ties which follow. 

I will only cite a very few passages of scripture, to impress this upon you, 
and then proceed with the other portions of the subject. " Take good 
heed unto yourselves (for ye saw no manner of similitude, on the day that 
the Lord spake unto you in Horeb, out of the midst of the fire,) lest ye 
corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any 



figure, the likeness of male or female. Lest thou lift up thine eyes unto 
heaven, and thou seest the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the 
host of heaven, shouklest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which 
the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven/' 
" To whom then will ye liken God \ or what likeness will ye compare unto 
Him ? Have ye not known ? have ye not heard ? hath it not been told 
you from the beginning % have ye not understood from the foundations of 
the earth ? It is He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhab- 
itants thereof are as grasshoppers ; that stretcheth out the heavens as a 
curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. To whom then will 
ye liken me or shall I be equal ? saith the Holy One. Therefore speak 
unto the people and say unto them, thus saith the Lord God, Every man 
of the house of Israel, that setteth up his idols in his heart and putteth the 
stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet, 
I the Lord, will answer him that cometh, according to the multitude of 
his idols." " Turn ye not unto idols, nor make to yourselves molten images ; 
I am the Lord your God." Here, my brethren, we see the terrors of God's 
right hand, and his swift judgments arrayed against the making or putting 
of idols in the room of God : and of making images of God : either to 
worship them, or to worship God through them. 

Perhaps it would be well to say a few words with respect to what is 
worship proper, as contradistinguished from image worship, before proceed- 
ing to the second portion of the commandment. Worship, in the true 
sense of the word, is a spiritual exercise — what the Latins call cultus 
dei, i. e. (though not literally) "religion." It implies a due sense of obli- 
gation, grounded on a knowledge of benefits received, as well as of respect, 
veneration, and homage due to God from us. Its three great branches are 
Prayer, Praise and Thanksgiving, to each or all of which may be referred 
the two great duties, Faith and Obedience. This constitutes the true 
religion. Praise and thanksgiving are said to be simple branches of 
worship ; they have their one object, God. We praise God for all His 
works — we thank Him for His goodness alone. But prayer is a complex, 
or compound branch of worship ; though it has only the same object as 
the other. It implies adoration which is a worship of itself ; confession 
which is another kind ; supplication which is another ; intercession which 
is another; thanksgiving and invocation which are also kinds of worship ; 
pleading, dedication, deprecation and blessing which are other kinds. It 
also implies belief in God, faith in His promises and contemplation of 
His perfections ; also earnest, frequent and regular desires for the enjoy- 
ment of Him. It has its kinds, its matter, its manner, its method, its 
expression and its forms. We can now see the absurdity of image worship, 
for we can have no sense cf obligation, grounded on a knowledge of bene- 
4 



26 



fits received from them ; nor of any respect, veneration, and homage due 
by us to them. They are unworthy objects of worship as well as incapable 
mediums. We cannot praise them, because they cannot perform any 
works. We cannot thank them, because they can neither love nor hate 
us ; we cannot pray to them in adoration, because they cannot impress us 
with any sense of greatness or goodness — in confession, because we cannot 
sin against them, and because we ourselves are greater than they — in sup- 
plication, because they cannot pardon or bless us, in any way whatever — 
in intercession, because they can do as little for our neighbors as for ourselves 
— in invocation, because it would be horrible blasphemy, to give them any 
of the names of God ; the name of God is God Himself — in pleading, 
because they are incapable of appreciating humility and fervency ; or of 
hearing or weighing argument — in deprecation, because they cannot foresee 
evils nor avert them — in blessing, because there is no matter of joy in them, 
nor can they bestow upon us any mercies whatever. As it is irrational to 
worship images, so would it be to worship any creature, however exalted. 
The highest stands to us in no relation, and has no claims upon us, which 
would require from us the praise and thanksgiving due to God. No crea- 
ture then can be an object of prayer; for although it may be capable of 
hearing prayer, yet it cannot answer in any suitable manner to our condition. 
It will refuse adoration, from a sense of its own littleness and unworthiness. 
It will turn away from confession, because its forgiveness cannot blot out 
iniquity. It may hear supplication, but it has neither the power to save 
us, nor to avert impending evils. It may listen to invocation, but will not 
be a partaker in blasphemy, by receiving the names of God, thereby 
making God of itself. This is not all. A creature, whether it be angel, 
spirit, departed saint, or living man, cannot be a suitable medium through 
whom, or in whom God is to be worshipped by another worshipper. God 
has declared, that, He despises not the sighing of the broken and contrite 
heart, of which Himself being omniscient is immediately cognizant ; which 
fact supercedes all necessity for mediums of worship. God can be and is 
present with an embodied spirit here, on earth, to listen to its praises and 
desires ; as well as with a disembodied spirit, in heaven. An embodied 
spirit on earth, can address a Being who fills all places and all time, as well 
as can the disembodied. One can worship immediately as well as the 
other. What is possible to one man's spirit in worship, is possible to 
another's. If God be omnipresent and omniscient, He can receive imme- 
diately all worship, whether it be offered in heaven or on earth. Why 
then employ images, idols or creatures as mediums ? 

We proceed to consider the second portion of this commandment, which 
prohibits us from making the likeness of anything " in heaven, or in the 
earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth," for purposes of worship. 



27 



The first forbids us to make any image or images of God whatever, with 
or without design. The second implies the permission to make them of 
whatever can be thus aptly and properly represented, if our object be not 
to pay them worship. We are only permitted to do this, not commanded . 
and it may be well to inquire very briefly, if this permission extends to the 
introduction of images of saints, &c, as accompaniments, as ornaments, or 
as anything else but essentials into divine worship, public or private. We 
all know that it is a scandal and an offence to true worship, to introduce 
aught that is carnal, or to interlard it with images in any way. According 
to one of the rules to be observed in the exposition of the Decalogue, we 
are not only to avoid that which is expressly and generally forbidden ; but 
also to the utmost of our ability, everything which would endanger the 
commission of that which is prohibited. The making of images, being 
the first step to idolatry ; the attaching of them to divine worship, being 
the second; and only another step being necessary to its completion ; it 
seems very clear, that, although we are permitted to make images of per- 
sons and things, which can be properly and aptly represented by them, yet 
we are by no means permitted either to make them with a view to intro- 
duce them into worship, or to mix them up with the same. The first step 
towards the thing forbidden, is as strongly prohibited as the last ; and so 
are the intervening ones. Whatever tends to, or endangers image worship 
then, is contrary to the intention and spirit of this law. When, then, we 
find images attached to divine worship, on the pretence that they are only 
ornaments, incitements, or auxiliaries thereto, we are to avoid such worship ; 
because the habit of worshipping, in the presence or images, is full of 
danger. We shall soon find that we cannot worship God without they be 
in our presence, or that, we will insensibly come to serve the image, instead 
of God, or worship God through it. Habit is every thing in such a case 
a? this. The ignorant especially, have but few safeguards against idolatry 
when they acquire the habit of worshipping in the presence of images. 
Are not, then, the images of Christ's manhood, (for his Godhead cannot 
be imaged,) of the Cross, of the Virgin Mary, of the Canonized Saints, <fcc, 
permissible in divine worship ? I pretend not the ability to break a lance 
with the learned Doctors of Rome. My conceit or self-righteousness will 
not blind me to the fact, that generally speaking, these Doctors are not only 
learned in the law, but also are striving to obey it. What, then, can be 
said with respect to the use of such images in the Roman Church ? Are 
they permissible, or not ? Is the Church of Rome guilty of idolatry or 
not ? The spiritual worship, required by this commandment, cannot, in my 
opinion, be addressed to God, by the aid of images ; and if so, the law 
clearly pronounces them intolerable. We are certainly permitted to make 
such images ; but strictly prohibited from using them, in any way, which 



2 g 



would conduce to idolatry. But attaching them to divine worship is doing- 
something, (to say the least of it) very like conducing to the thing forbid- 
den. Hence they should be discarded from worship altogether, on the 
principle that we should " avoid the appearance of evil ;" and lest they 
should become a stumbling block to the ignorant. But, the Church of 
Kome is said to address worship, viz. : prayer and praise to the departed 
souls of those represented in her images, and to invoke the Virgin and 
Saints. If this be so, (which many of her communion choose to deny) 
then she is not merely guilty of taking God's name in vain, by blasphemy ; 
but also of an intrenchment of the first commandment, in that she has 
more Gods than one. If she be guilty of worshipping images, or of 
attempting to worship God, or to serve God by the aid of images, which 
is also charged against her, then she is guilty of an infringement of the 
second commandment— her worship cannot be spiritual or reasonable ; but 
carnal and dishonorable to God, and contrary to His expressed will. If 
the justification, that " she only worships in the presence of images," be 
the only one she has to offer, she by no means clears herself from the dan- 
gerous effects which this habit produces ; for, if it be necessary to worship 
4 ' in the presence of images," that the worship may become acceptable to 
God, then God is surely worshipped in, through or by images in some way ; 
which has been proved to be an impossibility — and God, although a Spirit, 
never intended that he should be worshipped " in spirit and in truth ; 
for mediate worship through images cannot be such. It follows that the 
law, on this subject, is without point or meaning ; and if it be so in this 
particular, why not in every particular. The result would be that there is 
no law ; hence no obedience. But if images are unnecessary to divine 
worship, why then, are they used in it? The practice is seen to be very 
dangerous. The design or motive may be good, but it will not overcome 
the necessary danger ; far less supercede the implied prohibition of the 
custom in the law. That indeed can not be necessary to divine worship, 
which certainly tends to render it unworthy and dishonorable, and thereby 
utterly to destroy it. 

The positive duty, which is commanded in this law, not only repudiates 
all kinds of images in divine worship, but calls upon us for the extreme 
contrary — the w r orship of the " spirit and the truth." This law, like most 
of the others, is accompanied with certain explanatory reasons for its 
enforcement, and with certain threats and promises. The reasons are 
simply these, that " God is a jealous God" — " that He will not suffer His 
2,lory to be given to another ; neither His praise to graven images." There 
is a peculiarity in the penalties and threats here set forth. The general 
threat is, that " God shall visit the sins of the fathers, upon the children, 
even to the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him;" i. e, the 



29 



idolatrous children of idolatrous parents. The blessing promised is, that 
" He will show mercy unto thousands, in them that love Him and keep his 
commandments." This phraseology does not mean that God will punish 
one person for the sins of another, or that He will punish the child for the 
sins of the father. This would be inconsistent with His justice. The com- 
mandment says, that God will " visit the sins upon the children," not pun- 
ish the children for the sins of the father. We find this visitation spoken 
of in the case of all the Jewish and Israelitish captivities. Captivity seems 
to have been the temporal penalty, attached to the infringement of this 
particular law ; and it is, no doubt, what is literally meant in the words of 
the commandment. For in every casein which this chosen people of God 
was led away into captivity, it was especially on account of their idolatry. 
Hence the children of those led away captive, became heirs to the captivity ; 
not as a punishment upon the children, for the sins of their parents, if they 
themselves abstained from the sin ; but as a warning to abstain from hard- 
ening their hearts, as their fathers had done before them. This punishment, 
of captivity, being less or more perpetual ; of course the children of the 
sinful parents were visited by the consequences of their father's crimes ; 
but certainly not as a punishment ; for the children could not be punished 
for sins they had not committed. However, that sin must indeed be dread- 
fully heinous, for which a temporal penalty was inflicted, which visited with 
calamity, even the third and fourth generation. If the temporal penalty 
was such, what indeed must the eternal penalty be ? An overwhelming 
deluge of fury and indignation. 

We, my brethren, are under a spiritual dispensation which requires but 
little ceremony in the worship which it stipulates. The thing forbidden us 
in this law is much more easily committed than we may suppose. We 
must remember, that although the Jews, in their religious economy, were 
but a type of ourselves, yet this sin of sins, if committed by us, will not 
only be visited here with as severe temporal punishment as captivity, but 
hereafter, with the eternal wrath of God. God has often proved Himself a 
jealous God to us ; for when we turned to the idols and images which we 
reared in our hearts, He bared His arm and stript us naked. We are, 
indeed, too enlightened to make graven or molten images of God, or of any 
thing else, either to worship them, or worship God through, in, or by them ; 
but, since God is so very jealous of His honor, may He not have discovered 
that we have given to some object of ambition, to wealth, to power, to 
friends, to the world, to the flesh and to the fleeting fashion of this world, 
all the aftection, all the glory, all the praise, homage and worship, which 
are due to Him alone? May He not say to us, that we have come to the 
prophets with our idols set up in our hearts, and the stumbling block of 
our iniquity before our faces ? May he not bring the awful charge against 



30 



us, that our service to Him is founded, or would be founded upon unworthy 
conditions ; and that we could not worship Him at all, if we had not these 
conditions as so many images, through which, and on account of which we 
serve Him ? Look within, my brethren, to the idols of your hearts and 
spirits. Is not the language of your bosom, " Soul, take thine ease, eat, 
drink and be merry ; add drunkenness to thirst ; for the imaginations of 
my heart are my Gods, and them only will I serve and worship." Beware, 
beware, lest these spiritual images gain the dominion over you, and you 
come under God's outraged honor. 



8EEMON IV. 



THE THIRD COMMANDMENT. 



Text — Exodus xx, 7 : " Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy 
God in vain ; for the Lord ivill not hold him guiltless that taketh Hi$ 
name in vain. 

The third commandment, just read, is the next necessary step, in the 
upward ladder of our duty to God. We might have the Lord for our 
God, and serve Him only, worshipping Him in the manner stipulated, and 
yet by no means give due honor and reverence to many things which 
properly relate and belong to Him. Hence the necessity of this third law, 
which we now proceed to consider. 

We have here special mention made of the Name of God, as embracing 
and including all things that belong or relate to Him — hence, as signify- 
ing God Himself, and none or nothing else besides Him. It is this glori- 
ous and fearful name of the Lord God, which Moses commanded the 
Israelites to fear, under the pain of " wonderful plagues." David, in an 
outburst of holy rapture, speaks thus to the people : " Give unto the Lord 
the glory due unto His name, for His voice is upon many waters. The 
Lord is upon many waters, and His glory thimdereth." Since this name 
includes all that properly belongs to God, it is well for us to inquire what 



31 

is this awful duty which is laid down in this third law of the " Decalogue ? " 
The thing expressly prohibited, as you know, is the taking of God's name 
in vain ; and the duty commanded is, the paying of due honor and rever- 
ence to all things relating to God — all which are certainly included in the 
comprehensive expression " Name." 

To take God's name in vain is not merely to make mention of Him in a 
careless, rash and irreverent manner, but to name or speak of anything 
whatever, which properly belongs, relates, or pertains to Him, as a God of 
supreme authority and sovereignty, of infinite dignity and majesty, in a 
manner by which the thing spoken of would be dishonored or brought 
into unworthy notice, ridicule or light esteem. 

There are three great or principal ways, as I conceive, in which we may 
become guilty before God, in taking His name in vain, and in which God 
is generally dishonored in the particulars of this law. We will take the 
liberty, then, of noticing the different kinds of criminal swearing, as the 
first in order. The act of swearing, or of taking an oath, is nothing less 
than appealing to the God of high heaven to bear His testimony to the 
truth or falsity of all the things set forth under the oath. The act implies 
a submission to the arbitration of Him who seeth in secret ; and, like the 
lot, it is a direct appeal to Jehovah, for His adjustment of the matter 
wherein the oath is taken. It is also a prayer for His direction and inter- 
ference to bring such matter to a fair, truthful and just issue or conclusion. 
Hence, to swear to what is false and unjust is to appeal directly to the 
Supreme Being, in the most solemn possible manner, to adjust the matter 
sworn to according to the intention of him who swears ; i. e., to bring it to 
an unjust and dishonorable issue. This at once seriously assails the purity, 
truth and honor of Him to whom " lying lips are an abomination," " who 
is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity." 

There are two or three kinds of criminal swearing, which we will no- 
tice. The first, and most heinous, is "Perjury." This is solemnly swear- 
ing, in God's name, to what we are fully conscious is utterly false. If 
there be anything more heinous than another, of which man can possibly 
be guilty, it is this : to use God's name, which is God Himself, to establish 
a lie — to call upon God, by using His great and glorious name, to give 
His witness to the truth of that which both God and the oath-taker know 
positively to be false. What is this but to attempt to make God a liar in 
the sight of men and angels, and to attempt, in spite of His purity and 
impeccability, to drag Him down to the low and degrading level of a fallen 
and corrupted being. It by no means can mitigate, excuse or extenuate 
the dreadful sin of perjury, to mix up the true with the false under oath, 
when the sole intention of doing this is more effectually to make the false 
be taken for the true. To swear with the intent to lie, although some truth 



3-2 

maybe told, is, beyond dispute, real perjury. Even to state upon oath 
what is really true, in such a manner as to have false impressions con- 
veyed and the lie believed, is also, beyond dispute, perjury in the sight of 
God. To tell only a part of the truth, under oath, in order that an in- 
tended lie or false impression be conveyed, is only a mere trick in perjury, 
which by no means lessens, but enlarges its enormity. To equivocate, 
when candor is essential that the truth may be known, is to offer an 
almost unpardonable insult to the purity and boldness of truth, which 
deepens the dye of the crime. To so order speech upon oath as that the 
truth will become darkened, ambiguous and doubtful, and that the lie will 
be more apt to be received than the truth, is nothing less than to call upon 
God to become a partaker in the injustice and wrong effected by false- 
hood. All this is surely doing an almost unpardonable despite and dis- 
honor to the terrible name of God. In fact, it is an attempt to make God 
Himself a tool in the cause of iniquity and to turn His mysterious name, 
which is a universal blessing, into a desolating curse. 

The false swearer is not only guilty of dishonoring God by turning His 
name into a vanity and a curse. He dishonors God in that he subverts 
the ends of God's providences, and intrenches upon all His laws by be- 
coming a public scourge and a sore in the very heart of society. The 
man who will not respect the name of his God will not respect the rights 
nor the welfare of his neighbor. If the perjurer be revengeful, he will not 
scruple to wield the sword of God's name to accomplish his awful pur- 
poses. By false swearing a man may, and often does become a murderer, 
a thief, a robber, a despoiler of other men, a destroyer of widows and 
orphans — in fact, a rock of danger and a curse to all around him. If he 
set his relentless heart upon murder, and if circumstances be propitious, he 
can swear away the life of one man, or many men, as the case may be, 
and plunge whole households into the thickest glooms of despair, disgrace 
and poverty. If he be avaricious, he can become rich by hiring himself 
out as the tool of the bloody-handed and black-hearted, and grow fat by 
perpetrating the darkest crimes against society with impunity. He will 
not scruple (and, alas, how rife is the crime amongst ourselves), urged on 
by sinister and malignant motives, to blast the reputation of him who be- 
comes the object of his hate by a false oath. He will pitilessly rob the 
friendless and unsustained, Avithout a siugle pang of remorse, by a false 
oath. By it he will separate husband and wife — sunder what God hath 
put together, either that his own passions may be satiated or those of his 
vile employer ; he will take root in the ruins of others, and nourish from 
their destruction wrought out by himself — will become rich, and live with 
a merry heart, that he may " add drunkenness to thirst," that he may have 
the burning wages of the consumer's hire. By a false oath he becomes a 



33 



bird of the worst omeri — a worm, bred in corruption — a beast of prey in 
the midst of society, from whose attacks none can be safe. A slave to his 
own passions and an obedient hireling to those of other men, he works out 
this terrible amount of evil, as it were, by the hand and sanction of the 
most pure and jealous God. His crimes are all committed in that great 
Name. He it is alone among men who attempts to make heaven itself 
play into the hands of hell, and the Almighty to league Himself with the 
prince of torments. He is a peculiar, a superior sinner — a deliberate 
promise-breaker. All other sinners array themselves openly and boldly, 
in the sight of men and angels, on the side of the arch fiend, and the eyes 
of society are at once upon them, and it guards itself. But the false- 
swearer appeals directly to God while committing his deeds of darkness, 
thus attempting to make God the justifier and accomplice of his crimes, 
which fact quiets the fears and blinds the eyes of men to the evil w r hich he 
may be accomplishing. No wonder, then, that Jehovah's prohibition of 
this sin should stand out in the boldest relief among his other laws, as being- 
the greatest dishonor that could be done Him. No wonder that He should 
throw up a wall of fire around that awful name, which can be made so 
powerful in evil, in the mouth of the fearless perjurer. No wonder 'that 
the prophets of old should go about the streets delivering warning after 
warning, to respect the name of Him who is as infinite in terror as he is in 
love. No wonder that»these girded men of the wilderness should level de- 
nunciation after denunciation, like so many thunderbolts, at this fearful sin, 
which would drag the Ruler of heaven's legions and earth's inhabitants 
from His throne of purity and innocence to the very depths of eternal night, 
and which would dim — nay, extinguish forever the light and glory of 
heaveu, by turning it into the darkness of hell. 

There is another kind of criminal swearing which this commandment 
particularly forbids, to wit : all that is uncalled for and utterly needless. 
In common conversation there is no cause whatever for using the name of 
God, nor of anything which properly belongs to Him, because the subject 
matter of ordinary discourse is not so deeply solemn nor so highly impor- 
tant as that we can be justified in appealing to God in it by calling upon 
His name. An oath can only be justifiable in a matter of such gravity, 
importance and moment as that such matter cannot be adjusted or settled 
without it. 

If the name of God be God Himself — which is agreed — then it is, be- 
yond description, sinful and dangerous to use that name on every trivial 
and light occasion — to play with it or make light of it. To trifle with the 
Lord of all the universe is by no means a light matter ; for it has often 
been visited with the most signal and fatal punishments. God, so far from 
suffering Himself to be mocked or made light of, declares positively that 
5 



u 

He will neither be mocked Himself nor suffer the mocking of His servants 
to go unpunished. What, then, my brethren, are we to say of the horrid 
profanity and dreadful blasphemy which seems to burthen the very at- 
mosphere we breathe ? Are we merely to talk of it as a growing vulgarity 
of the community, or as an un gentlemanly indulgence, which a man may 
betray without flying in the very face of Heaven, trampling upon the 
honor of God, and outraging the feelings and ears of all good men in soci- 
ety ? Are we to speak of it as the result of a careless choice of words, or 
as a half-innocent or harmless habit, which may be thrown off at any 
time, with a little attention or a few struggles ) My tongue, I hope, will 
not cleave to the roof of my mouth ; my respect for God, for my duty, and 
for the pulpit of the eternal Church, I hope, will never give way to the 
-rati tic ati on of pandering to the feelings, prejudices and vanity of a cor- 
rupted peoj")le. This profanity, this shameless blasphemy which pervades 
societv is no vulgarity, but the long, the loud-sounding war-cry of hell. It is 
no mere harmless indulgence ; it is the sure proof of the low degradation into 
which tins country is sunk ; it is a voice, loud as the clamors of hell, telling 
the civilized world that California is all but unchristianized — that religion 
lias lost its power and its prestige here, and that the powers of darkness 
have these shores for a possession. Where, I ask, can religion be in a pro- 
fane community ? Can the honor and glory of God, in any sense, be sate 
in the keeping of the blasphemer or profaned How does it happen that 
the servants of God themselves seem to sit easily and look coldly on, while 
the name of the great " / am " is in the mouth of every ribald bacchana- 
lian and joined to all that can be degraded and obscene in language ? 
Have ordinary words become so scarce that our thoughts, rage and pas- 
sion cannot be expressed without calling upon God, by His Name, to wit- 
ness all our trifles, our frenzy and violence i Has God fallen into such a 
deep sleep that he cannot be wakened by anything else but by howling 
out His name wherever we go 2 Has language become so distorted and 
void of meaning that it can no longer convey ideas unless the awful name 
of Jehovah God be called into continual requisition \ Away with the 
velvet lip and silky tongue. The fastidious and gentlemanly rabbi would 
tell vou that it is in the lower orders of society that this profanity exists, 
and that it is what is to be expected from them. But, having watched 
society carefully, I tell you. without tearing indignation, seeking favors or 
approbation — and I call my God and 1113' conscience as witnesses over my 
soul and my tongue — that this sin, like an omnipresent and damned spirit, 
has permeated all grades of our society, rich and poor, high and low. 
Come with me to the midnight rendezvous of revel, where high-toned and 
obese gentility, haggard youth, and blasted age meet on the same level of 
depravity ; there hear each .foul sentiment, whether true or false, clinched 



35 



with a hideous imprecation ; there hear the drunken shout terminate in 
the terrific oath ; God's name and God's character howled forth in drunken 
wit or fury, as the humor or the passion of the miscreant may dictate. 
Come with me to the gambling-hell, to which we require no candle to 
light us; there behold the children of the misty night absorbed in onk 
ruinous passion — victims to one tyrant lust ; and, as the game is won or 
lost, hear the name of the Most High wantonly used in the prurient rejoic- 
ings of one and in the demoniacal ravings of another's despair. AYalk, 
even, the streets of your cities, towns and villages ; open your ears to 
men's language in your public thoroughfares, and you will hear the name 
of God almost upon every lip, with the most flippant and aggravating- 
levity. Men who appear and profess to be gentlemen — who seem to be in 
the full possession of their reason—to know the right use of language — will 
accompany the most idle threat with the name of Jesus, and the most 
trifling and equivocal promise with the name of the Most High. Their 
wine must be thus seasoned or it loses its flavor ; their most common con- 
versation must be plentifully interlarded with blasphemy or it becomes 
dull and uninteresting. They have actually become such slaves to pro- 
fanity that, when they thus offend, even in the presence of virtuous females 
and good men, they smile with mockery and contempt while asking for 
what they call pardon. It is deeply humiliating to be compelled to state 
that this sin has entirely overrun the State ; and so completely has it taken 
possession of the people, that one hardly knows whether to give the palm 
to gambling or to swearing. Wherever a person goes it is all one — the 
stage or the steamer, the hotel or the street, the kitchen, parlor or dinner- 
table, the shop or the saloon—every place of amusement — all, all resound 
with blasphemy — and that, too, of the most horrid kind, This is no ex- 
aggeration. Would to God that it were. Terrific execrations, powerful 
enough to move the very stones in our streets with astonishment, dreadful 
enough to cause the very walls of our cities to shriek out with fear, are 
uttered on every slight occasion. It positively seems that the gates of hell 
turned upon their hinges and suffered a legion of fiends to escape, who 
have now ceased their flight and are resting their wearied wings on our 
shores. The terrible plague they have brought along with them has 
proved frightfully contagious ; it is fed and fostered by its very victims. 
Society at length has become blunted and insensible to the heinousness 
and horror of this sin. Even the pulpit itself seems to have become silent 
in its direct, pointed and withering denunciations against it — its energies 
concentrating themselves into a refined style of persuasion, which falls upon 
the blasphemous soul as harmless as a shower of mustard-seed. Intellec- 
tual refinement and smooth speech are not the great desiderata of the pul- 
pit. They are, certainly, a portion of her offensive weapons ; but they are 



36 



not all. The walls of Zion must tingle to the " master-strokes " of St. 
Paul, which covered the learned men of Athens with confusion. She must 
thunder anew the "woes " of the incarnate God, not only that the proud 
Scribe and Pharisee may be brought low, but that the heart-strings may 
be riven of those whose boast it is, that they are under no control and that 
their rebellions and revellings cannot be restrained by the love nor anger 
of an omnipotent God. The men who stand in the gates of the Church 
must again take the burning torch from the hand of the ancient prophet 
and wave it on high, uttering the denunciations of heaven, that the bold 
offender may be cut short in his presumptions, and that the imaginations 
of his heart may vanish before the blaze of Jehovah's wrath. Like the 
shepherd-boy of old, they must raise the light arm and smite the defier 
of the armies of the living God, that the great giant and the vaunting 
armies of Philistia may become a prey to the hosts of the Lord. 

In one sense, this sin is more than perjury ; for the oath-vender often 
calls aloud upon God to destroy his soul and hurl him into hell ; and this, 
also, when he knows well that he is confirming the lie with these oaths. 
It is wholesale, habitual perjury — a kind of perjury which man cannot 
legislate against, and can only be reached by the Almighty's arm. It is 
more contagious than the most fatal plague, neither age nor youth being- 
spared ; more destructive to the morals of a nation than a divine scourge 
to the inhabitants of the earth. It stains its reputation, beggars its charac- 
ter, strangles religion outright, and shames decency and virtue into close 
retirement. It frightens the good away and invites the hopelessly ruined 
and criminal. It is the never-failing indication of a moral condition little 
short of that of Sodom. Indeed, it may fitly be compared to that dark, 
dismal volume of smoke which rose from the ruined cities of the plain, as it 
witnesses to the awful fact that we are a people almost forsaken and truly 
smitten. 

But there is one more kind of criminal swearing which all are to watch 
against, since it is strictly prohibited in the law under consideration. This 
kind takes place, sometimes, in matters which are of sufficient moment 
and importance to render an oath justifiable. This kind may be called 
rash swearing. A rash oath, in any matter whatever, not only endangers 
the commission of perjury, from the fact of its being made in the heat of 
passion or other exciting cause, or witl* carelessness, but is also highly 
irreverent, as it makes use of God's name without a due appreciation of His 
glory or honor. We often hear men make hurried promises and confirm 
them with as hurried oaths. These are fair specimens of rash swearing. 
Now, although the persons making these promises have no intention of 
leaving them unfulfilled, yet, since they were not well weighed, or were 
made under the influence of some exciting cause, or with carelessness, it is 



37 

the next thing to perjury to confirm these promises with oaths, because all 
the chances are that promises thus made can never be made good. 

Again, we often hear rash oaths taken in matters which would justify 
them, but taken without a due regard to the awful obligation of an oath. 
They are hastily and inconsiderately taken. It may be done without any 
design of inflicting an injustice ; yet the tendency may be — nay, often is, 
to falsify the truth. Hence, if this be accomplished, there is, in effect, a 
real perjury committed, and it is only extenuated by the absence of crimi- 
nal intention. But, notwithstanding this, the thing is deeply criminal, 
because the injustice inflicted, the false made true and the true false, are 
all the results or natural consequences of the rashness and carelessness here 
censured. In this way God is greatly dishonored. The man, also, who 
administers an oath in a matter of so little moment, or who administers it 
rashly and irreverently in a matter which does require it, is, in the first 
place, guilty of taking God's name in vain ; and, should an effectual 
perjury result, he is a partaker in the guilt and a party to all the heinous 
and injurious consequences that may follow the crime. 

There is only another kind of criminal swearing which we will consider, 
and leave this branch of our subject. We are prohibited by this law from 
swearing in the name of any creature, animate, inanimate, rational, irra- 
tional, human or superhuman, visible or invisible, either in heaven or on 
earth. Yet this is often done. To swear by, or take an oath in the name 
of anything is nothing else than to pay thereto the worship of honor. It 
implies that the creature by which we swear is omniscient ; because the 
oath sworn attributes to the thing in whose name the oath is taken the 
power to know the secrets of the heart and of discovering the truth or 
falsehood of our statements and our sincerity or insincerity in making them. 
Tt also implies the attribute of omnipotence — the power to punish perjury. 
It implies, also, that the thing sworn by has the right and power to judge 
all men, not only for perjury and falsehood but for all moral defalcation. 
Now, the ascription of these attributes to any thing or being, but God 
alone, is manifest blasphemy, unqualified idolatry, and a great dishonoring 
of God. By doing this we directly infringe upon the first three command- 
ments of the first table. We break the first law in that we ascribe what 
is essential to Deity to what is no God — hence making more Gods than 
one. The second, in that we pay divine honor and worship to what is no 
God ; hence we are guilty of image-worship or idolatry. The third, in 
that we take God's name in vain, by using, vainly and lightly, things that 
properly belong and immediately relate to God. 

How careful, then, should we be to bridle our tongues, purify and order 
our words, that the name of God be not taken in vain or dishonored. 



SERMON V. 



THE THIRD COMMANDMENT.— (continued.) 



Text — Exodus xx, 1 : " Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy 
God in vain ; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His 
name in vain" 

Having considered the principal kinds of criminal swearing, as prohib- 
ited by this law, we proceed to say something about lawful oaths. 

The taking of an oath presupposes a firm belief in the Supreme Being — > 
it being nothing else than an appeal to God to bear witness to the truth or 
falsehood of what we say. It is also a solemn imprecation, or prayer, that 
God may visit us in vengeance if we should state what is false. Hence, 
an atheist is not allowed to give testimony under oath, because his disbe- 
lief in the Supreme Being destroys his obligation to tell the truth. 

Dr. Paley says, " An oath, like all other religious ceremonies, generally 
consists of some bodily action and of a prescribed form of words." 
Amongst the ancients, both these were expressive of the most solemn, 
religious and binding obligation to tell the truth, on whatever occasion the 
oath was taken. This shows us in what reverence and fear this obligation 
was held among the enlightened nations of antiquity. It also shows us 
that they attributed to some God, true or false, the right and power of su- 
preme judgment over man and his affairs, as being the Vindicator of all 
truth and the Avenger of the oppressed and wronged. 

In matters of great moment and importance, men are under great temp- 
tations to falsify testimony, from motives of personal safety, interest, or ag- 
grandizement. They must, therefore, be made to feel that they are under 
an awful obligation to tell the truth, and that alone. The ends of truth 
and justice imply the necessity of oaths. But nothing can be an oath, 
properly so called, unless it is taken in the name of Him who is the source 
of all truth and justice, and unless it is accompanied with a firm belief in 
His existence as He has revealed Himself. It is a peculiarity noticed by 
all thinking men, that when an oath begins to be taken lightly or rashly, 



89 

and to lose its. solemnity and reverence among men, infidelity, with all its 
consequent evils and curses, begins at once to destroy all human honor, 
integrity and prosperity. Many good men have therefore thought it better 
to dispense with oaths altogether, that the sin of perjury might be pre- 
vented. But although this doctrine is supported by formidable reasons 
and arguments, and is apparently inculcated in our Saviour's oft-repeated 
precept, " Swear not at all," it would be subversive of the very things it 
pretends to accomplish, if carried out. The present state of the world is, 
in fact, one of obligation ; and to invalidate or destroy any part or portion 
of this obligation which hangs over mankind, is to blunt man's sense of 
duty — of right and wrong. We know that every man, so far as in him 
lies, is obligated to carry out the ends of justice and truth. If not, he is 
neither responsible nor subject to any law. Now, the obligation of an 
oath is one of the most sacred and binding that man can take upon him- 
self ; and although perjury proper and the sin of taking oaths on unwor- 
thy occasions might be obviated by the complete disuse of such oath- 
takings, yet men would not thereby become more honest or truthful. So 
that, since between man and man there must be some guarantee for trust, 
belief and confidence, there can be none better or stronger than that which 
is implied in the obligation of a judicial oath. What is called lawful 
swearing, then, is better than no swearing at all ; the former being a 
ground of mutual confidence, trust, or assurance, but the latter a mere 
theory, which would deprive men of this ground altogether, and would 
thus tend to subvert all law, government, order and society, even as per- 
jury and infidelity would. 

But God Himself hath taken oaths, and Jesus Christ, with His immedi- 
ate successors in the ministry. God, as is recorded in the Old Testament 
and testified to in the New, on several occasions and in proper matters, 
swore, by Himself, to the truth of His promises. It was that they might 
superinduce in man, to whom they were made, a full and a perfect trust or 
confidence. In Matthew, xxvi. 63, 64, we read that " the High Priest 
arose and said unto Him (Jesus Christ), I adjure thee by the living God." 
Here Avas the administration of a proper oath by the proper functionary, in 
a judicial Court, and on a worthy occasion. ".Jesus saith unto him, Thou 
hast said." Here is the taking of the oath by our Saviour ; for, if He 
did not assent to the oath, which is the same thing as taking it, or if He did 
not consider it as administered to Him, He most certainly would not have 
answered the interrogation put to Him as under oath, nor would this have 
been recorded as the answer of our Lord when He thus bore testimony to 
His divinity. Thus we see the Saviour giving testimony, as a sworn wit- 
ness, to His Messiahship, having SAvorn by Himself, who is the living God, 
who was adjured both in question and answer, that He is the Christ, the 



4" 



Son of God. The question carrying the administration of the oath was to 
the effect, " I adjure thee by the living God, art thou the Christ, the Son 
of God ? " The answer, implying the acceptance of the oath, w r as to the 
* effect — I adjure the living God to bear witness to what I say ; I imprecate 

His vengeance if I should say wdiat is false — "Thou hast said : " i. e.. I 
am the Christ, the Son of God. 

St. Paul frequently uses language, or certain expressions, which, if not 
oaths, certainly include them. For instance, he says : " But, as God is 
true, our word toward you was not yea and nay ; " i. e.. By God, who is 
true, I protest that " our word toward you was not yea and nay."' In 
another place he cites the instance of God swearing to Abraham, to show the 
immutability of His counsels and the infallibility of His promises : " For, 
when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no 
greater, He swore by Himself, saying, surely blessing, I will bless thee, 
and multiplying I will multiply thee." 

There are many other passages in the Epistles, and some in the Gospels, 
of like import. We must then understand the Saviour's words, " Swear 
not at all," as a prohibition against all useless and irreverent oath-taking, 
which dishonors God's name, and not as an utter repeal of the general law 
promulgated of old, " Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God ; Him shalt thou 
serve, and to Him shalt thou cleave, and swear by His name." The Sa- 
viour's words are a caution to us to practice this law properly. 

We have no time or space here to give an explication of the various 
forms and kinds of oaths which have been, and are still in use among men, 
nor to settle which are justifiable, or the contrary. The general rule is, 
that an oath is lawful when the matter upon which it is taken is of suffi- 
cient gravity or importance to require it, and when it is given and taken 
upon such matter, in the name or God, for no other ends but those of 
Truths Righteousness, and Judgment. There are the oaths of office, of 
promise, of allegiance or obedience, and of supremacy, dr. All these are 
lawful or unlawful, according to the opinions of moralists. But what are 
called judicial oaths, from the necessity of the case, and on account of the 
demands of justice and civilized law, which is founded upon the Supreme, 
are deemed lawful by most men, and have been recognized as such, not 
only by God Himself, but also by the generality of mankind in all ages of 
the world. 

We pass to notice the two remaining ways in which God's name may 
be taken in vain. The next in order, to swearing, will be vowing. 

A vow is no less than a religious oath — a superior or extraordinary re- 
ligious promise. It is a promise especially made to God, and never to 
man ; for the vower's purpose is alone to glorify or serve God in some 
special way. In these respects it diners somewhat from an oath so called. 



41 



An oath, in the ordinary sense, binds one only to speak the truth, that it 
may be known and justice done. In this sense it is indeed a solemn prom- 
ise to, or engagement with God, to do something which will ultimately 
redound to His glory, and yet it is a promise or ground of assurance to 
man that something is to be done which will immediately affect him. But 
a vow is a promise, or an engagement entered into with God alone, to do 
something of which none but God can take cognizance, and the fulfillment 
of which none have a right to expect but God alone. It is the most sol- 
emn and closest engagement we can enter into with God, since the prom- 
ise to Him in it is confirmed by an oath, and since He is willing to receive 
it if we earnestly and sincerely make it. Vows were often, in the older 
dispensations, grounds of the most solemn and dignified covenants betweeu 
God and man, and were then very common. But it has been argued that, 
as we have no direct or positive commandments in the new dispensation, 
or any plain precept either to enforce or encourage vows, we should not 
make them ; for, though they be lawful, they are unnecessary. It is indeed 
strange that men will thus enter the lists with inspiration. 

The nature of every covenant, I conceive, implies the necessity of prom- 
ises. But, in a covenant between God and man, the promises made bv 
man are so solemn and sacred that they are really vows in His sight, be- 
cause they are made to Him. The Christian covenant, being the reality 
of all that went before, is the highest and most sublime of all ; and the 
promises made by man in it are, in the highest sense, vows. As high as 
baptism is over circumcision, so high are our baptismal vows above those 
made in that rite. The Scriptures command, teach and preach baptism — 
so has the Church, from the first days ; but solemn promises, or vows in 
an extensive sense, are essential to that sacrament ; therefore the Scrip- 
tures and the Church command, teach and preach vows. Promises made 
by both parties, in such a covenant as the Christian, must be superlatively 
binding on each ; and such promises are the greatest and most solemn 
vows. To show us that promises made by man to God, on entering 
into a covenant with Him, are thus considered, the punishment of the 
covenant-breaker is the same as that of the perjurer, whieh is typified to 
us in the " cutting of animals asunder " — a dreadful figure of the outpour- 
ing of God's vengeance. In every covenant, from the first to the last, we 
see God in numberless and merciful providences ; on the one hand, fulfill- 
ing what he vowed, in nourishing and sustaining the Church, and in gath- 
ering her true children, from day to day, into the womb of heaven ; and, 
on the other hand, the Church, in her true children, discharging what she 
vowed to God, although beset by the world, the flesh and the devil. We 
are therefore to conclude that, even in the Christian dispensation, we have 
made the most solemn vows to God, inasmuch as we have received and 
6 



42 



taken upon ourselves the seal arid the sign of the covenant, in baptism, 
and thereby become the children of Cod, vowing to maintain that relation, 
to the best of our ability, until God comes to bring us to Himself. 

Many of you have taken solemn vows upon yourselves in baptism ; and, 
doubtless, some now listening to me have renewed them in the solemn rite 
of confirmation. But, may not I now ask, have you not forgotten them 
and left them utterly unpaid ? Your consciences will return the true an- 
swer. We have, time and again, renewed these vows in our hearts, by 
forming good resolutions to spend our lives as we had at first promised ; 
vet each renewed vow, each good resolution, was made only to be forgot- 
ten—only to bring dishonor upon God's holy name. 

There is another way in which we take God's name in vain. We vow 
too often ; not of will or necessity, but out of mere caprice or passion. 
Some will not only break their lawful vows, but vow that which is sinful 
and unlawful to be done, thus promising, in God's name, to do what He 
forbids. By doing this, we must suppose that God will expect that to be 
done which He hates — that He will receive whatever is vowed, even though 
it be sin, and that His service may consist in disobedience, if it only be 
vowed. It says, simply, that a mere hurried vow can alter God's nature, 
His law, and the service He demands, and that the economy of His gov- 
ernment is at the mercy of a hollow human promise confirmed by an oath. 
If this be not taking God's name in vain, it is impossible that it can be 
done. 

Again, we offend the dignity of God's name by vowing to do that 
which would be better left undone, and Avhich there is every probability 
that we will be either unwilling or unable of ourselves to fulfill. Now, to 
promise God to do something which justice, or the dictates of common 
prudence or caution would forbid, is to mock Him to the face. It would 
be saying that we are the best judges of what is suitable to be vowed. It 
Ihrows aside the guidance and counsel of God altogether and abuses His 
gifts of reason and judgment. If anything at all should be left " undone 
until it could be done well," that very thing is a vow ; because the taking 
of it demands the coolest and fairest deliberation and the clearest and most 
determined purposes. A rash vow is generally made under some excite- 
ment, without due consideration or thought, and the thing vowed is gen- 
erally as wicked, foolish or indiscreet as the vow itself. It may often be a 
thing which would at once be dishonorable to God, hurtful to ourselves, 
and prejudicial to our neighbor. 

It will also be taking God's name in vain, if we solemnly promise to do 
something in the future, against the fulfillment of which a thousand cir- 
cumstances must conspire. This is to profess, before God, that we have a 
clear insight into the future — that we are masters of our own time and 



43 



that of others — that we can overrule the unforeseen providences of God, 
and that we can mould or change His purposes to suit our own. In fact, 
it is saying that we are the judges and masters of onr own destinies and 
creatures of our own wills, independent altogether of the overruling provi- 
dences of God. It is removing God altogether from the earth, by opposing 
our determinations to His will in governing the affairs of the world. It 
supposes Him to be governed, rather than governing — necessitated to re- 
ceive everything vowed, however inconsistent with His character and how- 
ever doubtful and impossible it may ultimately prove of accomplishment. 
It supposes that we ourselves, independently of His sustaining power and 
grace, can maintain and carry out all our purposes, notwithstanding our 
blunders and weakness. It makes us as strong and as wise as God. In a 
word, it is trifling with the awful responsibilities and dignity of a vow, and 
striving to offend God by making good an unlawful and impossible vow. 

We take God's name in vain by vowing frequently. A vow cannot 
bear repetition, much less frequent repetition, even if the matter of it be 
lawful. The oftener careless vows are repeated, the oftener do we mock 
God and the more effectually do we add sin unto sin, until the Judge of 
all the earth can no longer withhold His vengeance. Frequent vows, like 
habitual swearing, render us completely insensible to their obligations and 
cause us to use with extreme levity the name of the Being to whom Ave 
make them, if not to view them more in the light of jests than of stern 
realities. The vows of baptism themselves, if frequently repeated, would 
lose their force upon us, for it would be abusing a sacrament. The same, 
may be said of the frequent use of all vows, for by them religion is cruelly 
scandalized, its obligations over us lost sight of, the Church laid open to 
the " boar of the forest," confidence in the promises of God and respect for 
His name completely destroyed, and, at length, men will vow and revow 
anything and everything, without thought, intention or purpose whatever. 
These are certainly the tendencies of rash, irreverent and frequent vows. 

But vows are acceptable unto God, therefore lawful, even in the new 
dispensation, if they be rightly made ; if made on solemn and worthy oc- 
casions ; if the motives governing us at the time be honorable to God ; if 
made in calmness and deliberation and in entire dependence upon God for 
the ability and the will to fulfill them. And if the things vowed be rea- 
sonable, lawful, and, as it were, under our own control and for God's espe- 
cial glory, and conducive to our own salvation, then our vows will be 
acceptable unto God. Otherwise we will only be taking God's name in 
vain. 

Prayer is another duty, in the performance of which we may take God's 
name in vain. Prayer is defined as follows : " An offering up of our de- 
sires to Grod for things agreeable to His will, in the name of Christ, by the 



help of His Spirit, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledg- 
ment of His mercies/' This definition will answer for all kinds of lawful 
prayer — public and private, open and secret, family and social, stated and 
occasional, special and ordinary. It defines the simple duty in everv 
jform — its matter, its method, its expression, its intention and object; It 
the matter of our prayers be in any way unsuitable to the nature of the 
duty itself, or unlawful to be set before the mercy-seat of the Most High, 
then we will be taking God's name in vain ; for it is in the name of 
Christ, who is God, that we make them. The method must be in keeping 
with the solemnity and dignity of the duty ; the expression suitable to the de- 
sires. The listen Hon must be worthy of the Being to whom they are addressed . 

VTe are commanded by our Saviour, not only to " watch and pray, 1 ' btit 
also to " pray and to watch " — these being the two features of the same 
difficult and solemn duty, and the only way we have of pleading our cause 
with God. How many are its privileges ! At one time in it, the soul can 
take up the golden harp of adoration and pour itself out in strains of 
praise for the goodness and mercies of Him who soothes the wounded and 
heals the broken-hearted. At another, the soul, in the depths of repentance, 
can prostrate itself in humble confession before the throne of heaven, where 
the tear and sigh are registered. At another, the longing spirit can boldly 
pierce the realms of eternal day, and plead, in the elevated and impassioned 
tone of supplication, in the ear of God, for the manifold blessings of joy 
and peace which were purchased by the mysterious blood of the Lamb. 
At another time, we can take up the songs of thanksgiving, and join with 
angels and just men made perfect. At one time, the soul can pay the 
most reasonable, most acceptable and most sublime service in prayer, by 
surrendering herself in vows of self-dedication and self-sacrifice. At an- 
other, she can call around herself the guardian legions of heaven, when she 
deprecates her Almighty Defender to guard her from impending and sur- 
rounding evils. At one, or at different times, the soul can do all this in 
prayer. Prayer, therefore, being such a solemn and awful duty, must not 
be tampered with or carelessly performed ; because the Triune God is its 
object and the immortal spiiit its burthen. God's name, in prayer, must 
not be taken in vain. The heart must be fixed while engaged therein, 
else we are sure to dishonor our Creator by that which is intended to 
please Him. Nothing must be petitioned for which would offend the wis- 
dom and majesty of the King of Kings, or our prayers will be mockeries 
and our expectations a desolation. Xo vain repetitions, especially of God's 
name, may pollute this duty of duties, else that holy name is taken in vain. 
We must go to our prayers properly prepared, and with the subject of 
them duly weighed and considered, so that the soul, without any fear of 
mocking God, may take its way to a throne of mercy. All irreverent 



45 

thoughts must be stilled — familiar and unbecoming expressions never be 
breathed. The coldness of monotony must not clog the wheels of this 
spiritual vehicle. Studied eloquence, for vain eftect ; fiery and extravagant 
sentiments, and the rashness of -wild fanaticism, must all give place to the 
calm glow of the earnest, subdued and unostentatious breathings of the soul. 
The pride of opinion and the heat of prejudice must not mingle with devo- 
tions addressed to that Being whose atfectingly benevolent character at- 
tracts the soul. If otherwise, then God's name is taken in vain. 

This duty must be discharged in a warm, yet calm, pure and reasonable 
manner, recollecting that it is addressed to Him who fills up the infinite 
abyss of every perfection, and whose eye or ear can neither see nor hear 
what is unworthy of Himself. We must be guided in. and inspired to it 
by the Spirit of grace and supplication that softens and renews the heart, 
breaks down the will, and fills the bosom with holy desires and heavenly 
encies. That Spirit binds up the spirits of penitent men and whispers 
to them the sweet news of pardon. He is the Father and tender Nour- 
isher of every consolation and every feeling of peace, and presents the 
soul, after long and ardent intercession before the Throne, without spot or 
wrinkle, purified, sanctified, and meet for the nameless felicities of heaven. 

You may, then, have a little understanding how God's name may be 
taken in vain in vowing and prating. I will ask, in all seriousness, have 
we not often taken God's name in vain, inasmuch as we have, time and 
ken tli- /V'7' vows we have made to Him in baptism \ Have we 
not all dishonored God when our prayers have been unworthy of Him and 
of the character of a Christian \ Listen to the voice within, and tremble 
at the answer. The vows of the Church, and especially her prayers, are 
but of little account with us, although these prayers, for warm devotion, 
pure and elegant diction, have no match in the Christian world. 

I have spoken already of that shameless profanity and habitual blas- 
phemy by which men take the name of God in vain. I have alluded to 
the awful fact, that this Xanie is introduced into our most common-place 
conversations. You will then ask, what more can you say \ A little 
more ; and you must suffer me, for it is on God's behalf I will speak. It 
was asked, " Why do you always tell us of our faults \ " Strange question 
to put to a minister of God. But it may be answered by asking you, a 
professedly Christian people, a question equally as strange. Would you 
like, or do you expect to get to heaven, with your souls steeped in faults 
and loaded down with sins ? It you do, vou must immediatelv set about 
discovering a new road thither, for the Church knows of none such ; and 
when you have discovered it. depend upon it you will be in good company. 
Then, and not till then, may you safely refuse to hear the rehearsal of your 
faults and go on your newly-discovered way rejoicing. 



46 

But in what other ways do we as Christians take God's name in vain I 
God's honor and name are inseparably connected with and concerned in 
His Word, His Church and instituted Ministry. It is by contemptu- 
ously treating ail these in our neglect of them, that God's name is dishon- 
ored. God's word is handled ignorantly, and impudently, in all our new, 
and what we call reasonable doctrines. From the Spiritist, the favored one 
of electricity, to the most incoherent mystagogue ; from the oscillating scep- 
tic, to the open and declared infidel, have we an army of wiseacres, if 
not prophets, who assail God's word in the strength of their boasted wis- 
dom. There is cultivated, amongst us, an unbridled habit of thought, 
which is utterly subversive of all religion. It is no strange thing, indeed, 
to hear men, who if the truth were known, have never spent one hour in 
careful and unprejudiced study of scripture, drive through it as if they 
wrote it, and mix it up with the strangest rhapsodies ever penned or 
uttered, as if thev understood all about it. They thus strive to bring it 
into ridicule and contempt, and throw it, as it were, piece-meal to the very 
doo-s. You cannot fail to know that the literary taste of our societv. o;en- 
orally speaking, has become so dangerously morbid, that nothing will 
satisfy it but the truly mysterious and marvellous. Any thing savoring of 
true religion, of God, and eternity, though we profess to be a christian and 
thinking people, comes "stillborn" from the press. Every new tangled 
notion, if it be only unreasonable, irreligious, marvelous or mvsterious, is 
sure to be honored with its apostles ; and if need be. with its martyrs. 
The oracles of the living God, as a beneficial study, or as a rule of life, 
are unheeded while a licentious literature is deluging the State ; not merely 
with a bewildering philosophy, but with the most abandoned infidelity 
itself. California may hide her face with shame, from infidel Germany, 
since in her infidelity there is neither method, learning, reason nor philoso- 
phy. The wildest speculations of hair-brained fanatics, or lovers of singu- 
larity ; the most ridiculous and unfounded opinions of God and His reli- 
gion are overwhelming the country. In short. God's word is treated bv 
the majority, or at least by a very large minority of the people, as if it 
w^r^ an empty fable, invented to frighten silly women, or to enthral the 
human race, for the especial benefit of a class of men called " Priests." 

The Church is also an object of contemptuous neglect, nay, frequently 
of open mockery. The Church was pur-chased by the blood of Him who 
thought it '* no robbery to be equal to the Father." the Eternal God. Yet, 
although God's name is upon her. and the honor of the spouse is the honor 
of the " One Husband" she seems to be an object of universal neglect. 
The murmurs against her are by no means deep and secret, but loud and 
open. A -mall minority of those who enjoy the fruits of the enlightenment 
she has given to the world, scarcely enquire if she is in existence : and out 



I? 



of this small minority, only a solitary few are seen at her altars and in 
attendance on her public services. Her walls are almost empty ; her altars 
almost desolate; and her sacraments falling into disuse. Amid the noises 
of the tempest, in the hurried rush of the multitude, in this deafening cry 
for gold, her demands are drowned, her claims are forgotten, and her tears 
fall unpitied and unseen. She would tell that she is hungry ; but the time 
can not be afforded, the will can not be cultivated, even to cast into her 
lap the fragments of the sumptuous feast. She would expose her wounds 
and sores ; but the dogs only are left at the gate to soothe them. She 
would tell that she is poor, houseless and friendless ; that she is a woman 
travelling in the wilderness, shedding tears under the twice knotted scourge 
of outrage and neglect ; but none have time to listen. Every one has his 
wife to marry, his feast to prepare, his oxen to try, his plot to complete, his 
plan to mature, his money to make and his houses to build. Her sublime 
services are slighted. Her especial clay is devoted to " smiting with the 
fist of wickedness," avarice and tyranny. Her God is blasphemed and 
dishonored. Her prayers and sacraments are cast aside, as but small con- 
solations. Her name and honor can rind no consideration. And that she 
would become obsolete, seems to be the general wish. Hoav terrible are 
these things, if they be truths. Hoav ineffably dreadful must that guilt be, 
which is involved in this wholesale way of dishonoring God ? 

God's ministers are also objects of our neglect. Since they stand to God 
in a particular relation ; and since they exercise those functions which look 
especially to God's glory and honor, every thing done directly or indirectly 
against them, in an improper way, does dishonor to the name of their 
Master. Of all men they must cultivate the wisdom of the serpent and 
the harmlessness of the dove, even while struggling with that tribulation 
which is given them, as an heritage in life ; so that they may accomplish 
their Master's work. Amongst us, their labors are redoubled, and in the 
same ratio are their tribulations. Laboring here, hoping even against hope, 
in the great work of saving souls ; but few are the green spots in this desert 
waste, few the encouragements to hope in this howling wilderness. They 
are the fools of the country, because they are poor, although they are its 
greatest benefactors. Every other man receives the full hire, nay more 
than the full, from the jaded mountebank to the necessary artizan ; from 
the smirking ballad singer to the honest tradesman. All, all are cared for, 
or at least, can put themselves in a position to be cared for. But the min- 
isters of God, with few exceptions, are left to the tender considerations and 
charities of an irreligious multitude ; many of whom think it the part of 
true freemen to gnash upon them, and scout at their functions. The min- 
istry of Christ are spoken against ; their motives are impugned ; their 
intentions wilfully misconstrued ; their labors thankless in the world ; and 



is 



their trials pass unpitied. Do not we, my brethren, entail some share of 
all this evil upon God's peculiar heritage ? If so, we must bear in mind, 
that in doing so, we greatly dishonor God through them. 

To conclude. At one glance, you may perceive the positive duty in the 
command. It is to speak at all times, in all places, and under all circum- 
stances, with the greatest awe and reverence to and of God. To watch all 
that we do and say, with respect to all things which properly belong to 
Him ; so that we may honor and glorify His great name. To befriend 
religion in word and deed ; to watch over* its reputation ; and to cultivate 
a due respect and esteem for all its holy things — so that neither our tongues 
nor our hands may offend. 

But there is a punishment spoken of in this law, which teaches that 
God will, by no means, suffer His name to be turned into vanity, nor His 
holy things to be profaned. And, that although for a time, men seem to 
escape, yet righteous judgment cannot be far away. Belshazzar may be 
drunk with wine, from the holy vessels, of the sanctuary; but the hand 
writing will soon be on the wall, and Cyrus will soon be at the gate. * The 
watchmen of the night are hearing the rumblings of advancing retribution, 
as with prophetic ear ; as if God were once again on His dread way, to 
vindicate His law in a more awful manner than when He shook the rocks 
of Sinai and furrowed the sides of the eternal mount. 



SERMON VI. 



THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. 



Text — Exodus xx, 8-11 : "Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy, 
Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work: but the seventh day is 
the Sabbath of the Lord thy God : in it thou shalt not do any work, 
thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid- 
servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates : for 
in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in 
them is, and rested the seventh day : wherefore the Lord blessed the 
sabbath day and hallowed it." 

This is the last law of that table of the Decalogue which relates to our 
duties towards God. The law, with respect to the Sabbath, was by no 
means a new one at the promulgation of the Decalogue ; for Adam knew 



49 

it and observed it. In the 2d chapter of Genesis, we are informed that 
when " the heavens and earth were finished, and all the host of them, on 
the seventh day God ended his work, which He had made, and He rested 
on the seventh day from all His works, which He had made ; and God 
blessed the seventh day and sanctified it." He rested upon it, and blessed 
it ; hence rest upon this day, would be a duty owing to Him, by his crea- 
tures. We may, therefore, safely conclude that the law, with respect to 
the Sabbath, was given immediately after the completion of creation. 

To the question, " What is the Sabbath V' there is a sufficient answer 
in the commandment itself. It is a day consecrated to religious rest, after 
being engaged during six, in all the ordinary duties of life. a Six days 
shalt thou labor, and do all that thou hast to do : but the seventh is the 
sabbath of the Lord thy God." The reason, or ground of its institution 
is also given in the command : that it might be a day of commemoration, 
not only that God created " the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that 
in them is, and rested the seventh day ; " but also, that his creatures might 
have an opportunity to rest from their labors, and to address especial praises 
to the Creator, for all those stupendous works, which engaged him during 
six days. 

But, although this law was binding upon the antediluvians and upon the 
Jews, in consequence of its being expressly delivered to them — can it be 
binding upon Christians \ There is not much harm in asserting, although 
we are by no means certain that the Jewish Sabbath was, most probably, 
the same day as that which was hallowed by the original command. But 
without stopping to agitate this question, which is beyond man's power to 
settle, we, with more profit, may enquire into the reasons why God should 
renew a law to the Jews, that had been given to all men from the very 
beginning. 

It is beyond dispute, that Adam, and the patriarchs who sprang from 
his loins, knew that it was God's will that they should worship the true and 
living God, according to an express law, similar to the one respecting wor- 
ship, promulgated in the Decalogue. Notwithstanding this, we find this 
original law renewed again in one of the negative commandments of the 
first Table ; but so promulgated, as to be suitable, not only to the Jewish 
but also to the Christian dispensation. 

Immediately after the flood, we find recorded a law against murder, 
which is again repeated to the children of Israel, on their deliverance from 
Egyptian slavery. Indeed, the whole of what we call the " moral law, " 
in its full sense, though not in its present form, was known to man from 
the beginning ; until universal idolatry effaced it from his memory. Adam, 
after the fall, is said by learned critics, not only to have known the will of 
his Creator, with respect to the Sabbath, but also, to have had six distinct 
7 



50 

precept? given him, as a rule of life, which, in their full scope embrace the 
Decalogue. These were: Is:. Against idolatry. 2d, Against blasphemy. 
3d, Against murder. 4th, Against adultery. 5 th. Against stealing. 6th, 
To appoint judges to enforce these precepts. Noah is said to have had all 
these renewed to him. immediately after the nood. with the addition of one 
against eating the tiesh of an animal before it was dead. The precepts 
enjoined upon Noah, are by Jewish Rabbins, said to be as follows, viz : — 1st, 
Judgment: or to punish crimes prohibited. 2d, Blessings: the institution 
of the Sabbath, and praising the nam- of God, which is God Himself. 3d, 
Against idolatry. 4th. Against uncovering our own nakedness. 5th, 
Against the shedding of man's blood in murder. 6th. Against theft in all 
its modifications. And 7th, Against eating the mesh of an animal before 
it was dead. 

The reason why the law of God was reiterated to Adam, to Noah, and 
to Moses, was certainly involved in the moral condition of man at the 
carferem times of its promulgation. 

God gave it to Adam because he fell, and that he might teach it to his 
posterity. It was renewed again to Noah, that he might teach it to his 
descendants, to guard them from the gross idolatry and pollutions which 
caused the antediluvian world to I : overwhelmed by the deluge. In both 
these cases, yen will observe that the obligation of the law was universal; 
because, as yet there was no such peculiar and distinct people as the Jews. 
It was renewed again to this nation by Moses. 1st. Because they themselves 
had the law effaced from their remembrance, during their long captivity in 
Egypt And 2d. Because this nation was chosen of God to enlighten all 
others as to their duties to God and man. Antinomians, then, might as 
well say. that, since the lav.- was lirst given to Adam, and then to Noah, it 
was binding only upon Adam and Noah, until it was delivered to Moses; 
as that, since it was first given to the- Jews, in its present form, it is binding 
upon them ab.ne. and not upon Christians. Tins conclusion, as all may 
see, would be a gross absurdity* 

But with regard to the commandment under consideration. It was 
renewed to the Jews, nor only for their own observance, but tor that of all 
men. As se en as men multiplied, after the creation, as the Scriptures 
inform us. idolatry covered the face of the earth, and the wickedness of 
man caused a universal neglect, not only of the true worship ; but also 
blotted out from the memory of man. all traces of the '.lay upon which God 
rested from his labors, and which he blessed. Alter the flood, although this 
day might be partially observed, in the- family of Abraham; yet when his 
descendants came under the Egyptian tyranny, for so long a time, fliey 
too, most likely, had forgotten all about it as did the antediluvians of old. 
VTe have no mention made cf their observance of it. during their bondage 



51 



in Egypt ; nor have we any reason whatever to suppose that it was even 
remembered by them. Hence we may conclude, that there was good rea- 
son for God to promulgate anew to the Israelites, this, as well as other 
commandments, which were partially, if not wholly lost to them, in their 
state of captivity. It was thus renewed to the Jews soon after their passage 
of the Red sea, when their Almighty deliverer began to feed them with 
manna. We read. Exodus xvi, 5 : " And it shall come to pass, that on the 
?ixth day, they shall prepare that (manna) which they bring in ; and it 
shall be twice as much as they gather daily." We have here an express 
command, that they should gather manna, on six days, every morning ; 
but, that on the sixth day, they were to gather and prepare so much of it 
as would be sufficient for two days, viz, : the sixth and seventh. The sev- 
enth being the Sabbath, there was no manna to tall, nor was any to be 
gathered on that day. Hence we read, " that on the sixth day, they gath- 
ered twice as much bread— two omers for one man — and all the rulers of 
the congregation came and told Moses. And he said unto them : This is 
that which the Lord hath said. To-morrow is the rest of the Holy Sabbath 
unto the Lord/' This particular day of rest, then, the Jews were hence- 
forth to observe as their Sabbath ; which was the last day of the week, 
answering to our Saturday. It was appointed to the Jews, for a continual 
commemoration to them of their deliverance from the house of bondage ; 
that it might be to their children a continually recurring proof that the 
God of Israel overcame on that day the great taskmaster of their fathers, 
in the Red sea ; and that He sustained them miraculously, on manna, the 
food of angels, in the desolate wilderness. Therefore, the Lord spake unto 
Moses, saying : — " Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying : 
verily my Sabbath ye shall keep, for it is a sign between me and you, 
throughout vour Generations • That ve mav know that I am the Lord that 
doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the Sabbath therefore ; for it is holy 
unto you. Every one that defileth it, shall surely be put to death ; for 
whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among 
the people/' They were to sanctify it to a holy and religious rest ; as com- 
memorative of their deliverance from slavery, wherein they never experi- 
enced the rest of the blessed Sabbath ; that they might have a weekly 
opportunity to address their praises and worship to Him who created the 
universe and delivered them from the power of their enemies, with His 
Almighty arm. The Jews were thus under two particular obligations to 
observe this day of rest ; the defiling of which, in their case, was punished 
with death. 1st, Because God rested on the seventh, after laboring six> 
in creating all things visible and invisible. 2d, Because it was on this 
exact day of the Jewish week, that God accomplished their deliverance 
from slavery. This law then, to the Jews, not only comprehended the 



52 



sabbatical PROPORTION, which the original precept legislated ; but also 
the exact day upon which happened all the other particulars, for which 
the Jewish Sabbath was instituted. 

The Jews were so sensible of their obligations to observe the sabbatical 
proportion as sanctified unto the Lord, that they cut up their times into 
so many sabbatical sections, to be dedicated to holy purposes. As their 
seventh day was their weekly Sabbath, so was their seventh month a sab- 
batical month, or month of Sabbaths. This month was begun with the 
Wowing of trumpets. Although it was the first month, and its first day 
the first day of the civil year ; yet, being the seventh month of the religious 
year, it was set apart as a month of sabbatical rest. The seventh year 
was also a sabbatical year ; in which the land was to rest from tillage. And 
at, or after the seventh of these sabbatical years, *. e. once in fifty years, 
there was a year of jubilee, wherein all were released from bondage and 
servitude. 

The questions now come up : Is the Christian obligated by the law under 
consideration, to observe the sabbatical proportion ? and if so, does the. law 
permit him to change the Jewish day to any other day, on which trans- 
pired certain events, which especially concern him as a Christian-— the sab- 
batical proportion being always observed ? 

The anti-sabbatarian maintains that the Christian is neither obliged to 
observe the sabbatical proportion, nor any day set apart by man, for the 
commemoration of an event that transpired to overthrow all Jewish insti- 
tutions. He argues, that, if the law, with respect to the Sabbath, be a part 
of the moral law, it certainly requires the same circumstantial exactitude 
of obedience as the other parts : therefore, that if we are bound by this 
law at all, it certainly calls upon us to observe the Jewish day, which is our 
Saturday. 

We will admit, nay, we strongly aftirm that this law is a due part and 
parcel of the moral law ; but with the qualification that it is partly moral, 
and partly positive, The positive portion of it may be altered, yet the 
moral ends and purposes MHof need not be, by such alteration, invali- 
dated or destroyed. The moral portion will remain the same as ever. 
When we hear St. Paul stating, in the same breath, that Christians are not 
obliged to observe Jewish days and Sabbaths, but, that they are subject to 
the whole moral law, of which the one respecting the Sabbath is a part, 
we will be at a great loss to understand him, if we receive the anti-sabba- 
tari an's views. If his words have any meaning at all, it can be nothing- 
else than this : that the Christian is not obliged to observe the Jewish 
Sabbath ; but is bound to observe some Sabbath, that the moral ends and 
purposes of the law may be answered. The Jew answered these, by 
pbserving his Saobath, while his dispensation was not as yet passed away. 



S3 

The Christian fulfills them when he observes his day ; from the fact that 
the command only legislates the proportion, and the manner of its 
observance — and not any one particular day. 

God who framed the commandment, is too wise to make a law for the 
observance of one particular day, by all mankind ; because, His own works 
would render obedience to such law, utterly impossible. If the command 
should strictly hold all mankind to one particular day, of necessity, one 
portion could never obey its injunctions at all—for, while it is morning and 
evening on one part of the earth, it is evening and morning on the other. 
While some nations would be singing their hymns of praise, and offering 
up their prayers, others would be asleep during the watches of the silent 
night. Hence, ere the day could be universally kept, beginning and end- 
ing at the same hours, some portion of mankind must deprive themselves 
of their natural rest, which the law does not require, and which, in its 
wisdom it would never permit ; or one portion would be desecrating it 
while the other would be observing it. The law, as you will observe, puts 
forward its injunctions in very general terms ; so much so, indeed, that it 
avoids the difficulties which are involved in the different cycles. There 
is no notice whatever of the day from which the septenary cycle is to be 
computed. It seems to have left this to the discretion of mankind ; be- 
cause no such computation could be made with exactitude, owing to the 
endless difference of latitude and longitude ; and also, because there has 
never been sure certainty in the computation of the hebdomadal cycle. 
Some nations count their days from midnight to midnight ; others from 
morning to morning ; yet, in the law, there is no rule expressed or implied 
which fixes when the day should begin, or when end. If the exact ob- 
servance of the particular seventh day were necessary to its proper fulfill- 
ment, either the law itself, or the prophets, or other scriptures would most 
certainly have guided man in his computation of the septenary and heb- 
domadal cycles. There is no rale supplied ; and among different nations 
this computation is diversely made, so that now, as well as always, man is 
not certain as to the first or last day of the original septenary cycle. 
Hence we may conclude, with the utmost safety, that the positive portion 
of this law allows man to adopt his own most convenient computation ; 
but that the moral portion, according to the intention of the original insti- 
tution, binds him to observe a seventh portion of his time, a seventh day 
of rest after six of labor, a Sabbath, as holy unto the Lord. 

It is not necessary to prove that this commandment is a due part of the 
moral law, which has perpetuity and universality of obligation and author- 
ity, and that its intention is much higher than that of a mere precept of 
political expediency. It has an unrepealed position among the other laws 
of the Decalogue, all of which our Lord and His Apostles obeyed and ac- 



54 



knowledged. Our Saviour came to fulfill the law, and the Apostles went 
about to establish it. But what law ? Certainly the moral law, which 
slept in the mind of God from all eternity, and which was delivered to man 
from time to time, as it seemed fit to the Almighty. The laws of the Jews 
are divided into the moral, the ceremonial and the prophetical. But we 
do not find the law with respect to the Sabbath included in the ceremo- 
.nial, hence we must refer it either to the moral law or the prophets. It is 
included in the moral ; and the prophets taught it because it was so in- 
cluded, for their moral precepts were nothing but reiterations of that Faith 
and Obedience which are the teachings of the Decalogue. Our Lord 
came to fulfill the law and the prophets ; and He delivered two new com- 
mandments, upon which they hang, and which give them universality of 
obligation and authority. By giving His authority, then, to the moral 
law, both by teaching it and recognizing it in obedience, He certainly ful- 
filled it, in the strictest sense of the word. He fulfilled the prophets by 
obeying their moral precepts and enforcing their obligation, and also by 
verifying their predictions in His person, character and mission. He ful- 
filled what is called the ceremonial by accomplishing all that its typical 
ceremonies foreshadowed, in becoming a sacrifice for man and the Saviour 
of mankind. Hence the ceremonial ceased to be obligatory upon any, 
because it was realized ; but the moral law and the moral precepts of the 
prophets are still perpetuated in their universal obligation, by being estab- 
lished by the Lord's sanction and the teachings of His Apostles. 

But the anti-Sabbatarian maintains that the obligation of the Sabbath is 
not binding upon Christians, since there is no expressed precept to that 
effect in the New Testament. It would be far more consistent with true 
logic and common sense to say that, since there is no express repeal of the 
law with respect to the Sabbath in the New Testament, its obligations be- 
come universal and perpetual. Our Lord Himself says, expressly, that 
"the Sabbath was made tor man ; " not merely for the Jew man, but 
for the Gentile also ; i. e., for all men. From this declaration we may 
infer the universality of the Sabbatical obligation. And since He observed 
it, not as conforming to the ceremonial law of the Jews, but as a moral 
law, comprehended in the sum total of our duties to God and man, we 
may also infer that its obligation is established perpetually and universally ; 
that it still stands as an unrepealed law in the Decalogue. 

What St. Paul said to the Romans as Christians, he also says to us m 
such ; which is, that Christianity does not destroy or make void the law, 
but, on the contrary, establishes it. But, what law ? Surely not the cere- 
monial, because it was merely a temporary arrangement, which through- 
out was intended to be abolished when the reality of its figures and types, 
was come. It must, then, be the moral law, which existed from all eter- 



35 

nity and will continue forever. This law could neither be abolished nor 
mutilated by Christianity, though it might be established or fulfilled by 
the teachings and sanction of the Author and Finisher of salvation. It is 
the expressed will of God, which is unchangeable ; it therefore cannot 
conflict with Christianity. Christianity can never make void the will of 
God, as it stands opposed to evil, but strengthens and establishes it. The 
law, then, is a part of Christianity itself, since obedience to it is the fruit 
and evidence of that Faith which the Apostle inculcates on the Eomans, 
as the first and great duty of the Christian. 

If, then, the law with respect to the Sabbath stood embodied in the 
moral law, from the beginning, as a due part of it, the New Testament is 
the last place wherein we should look for its repeal. Christianity would 
be making itself void, if it could abolish the whole or mutilate any part of 
the Decalogue. The Sabbatical obligation is - as strong and universal as 
ever, and neither Jew, nor Gentile, bond nor free, is or can be exempt. 
The extent of the obligation goes no farther, as I have already attempted 
to show, than to bind us to observe the Sabbatical proportion of our 
time, as holy unto the Lord. The object of the institution is to procure 
and perpetuate public worship, which, without doubt, other portions of the 
Decalogue demand. Without some Sabbath, there could be no public 
worship or public teaching — there would be no solemn assemblies, or holy 
convocations. All these are the moral ends and purposes of this law ; and 
to slight them is as much at one's peril as to slight any other part of the 
moral law. To deprive God of His public worship, or to absent oneself 
from the solemn assembly, is as much a dereliction of duty, as to steal or 
commit adultery. For what reason is a man prohibited from doing any 
secular work upon the Sabbath ; but, that he may have an opportunity to 
join in public worship, which is one of the greatest moral ends of the 
law ? Thus then, we see, that although this law enjoins only upon us the 
11 proportion ;" yet it prohibits every individual from making or appoint- 
ing a Sabbath of his own ; because, whole societies, communities and 
nations must observe the same day, ere the moral ends of the law could be 
fulfilled. 

I have stated already, the two reasons which obliged the Jews to observe 
a Sabbath. We now pass to consider the case of the Christian. The Jews 
worshipped God as the Almighty, as the Maker of heaven and earth, of 
all things visible and invisible. In this particular respect we, as Christians, 
must also worship God ; since w r e stand in the same relation to Him, as 
did the Jews. This, then, is one reason or obligation, why we, as Chris- 
tians, should observe the seventh part of our time, a seventh day of rest, as 
holy unto the Lord. The Jews worshipped God, as their deliverer from 
Egyptian slavery : and as their sustainer in the wilderness, with the food 



m 

of angels. We, as Christians, do not worship Him as our deliverer from 
any temporal or earthly slavery ; but from that of sin and Satan. The 
Jewish Sabbath therefore could not answer the Christian in all respects. 
It would certainly be commemorative of the work of creation ; yet not of 
any special deliverance of the Christian. The Jews sanctified that very 
day unto the Lord, upon which their deliverance was completed, by the 
passage of the Red sea, which was the last day of the week. But the 
Christian, having nothing to do with the grounds of Jewish institutions, 
could not observe this day with propriety ; since he could sanctify another 
day unto the Lord, upon which not only the creation might be commemo- 
rated, but also the complete redemption of all mankind—the day the Sun 
of Righteousness rose with healing under his wings-— on which the Son of 
God burst his blood-stained tomb, and our Saviour and Deliverer overcame 
all our enemies. The particular deliverance of the Jews, being only a 
shadow or type of this universal deliverance, of course the day that com- 
memorated the shadow would be superceded by that which was to com- 
memorate the reality ; the Sabbath, being but a type of Sunday, or more 
properly the " Lord's day." The last day of the week gave way to the 
first ; because heaven, earth and hell then stood still as it were, to gaze with 
awe and astonishment upon the Conqueror with red apparel, returning from 
His strife with unseen principalities and powers, to proclaim a victory 
which will be the song of eternity. Who dares then to pronounce the 
change a useless innovation ? Who dares make light with the obligation 
to observe this day of days as a weekly Easter ; as a day of prayer, praise 
and thanksgiving unto the Almighty Conqueror ? The Apostles were ex- 
pressly authorized to found the Christian Church ; to appoint its days and 
dictate its worship and doctrines. They would not have abolished the 
Jewish Sabbath, and instituted the Christian, unless they knew it was their 
Lord's will that they should do so. Most probably the Saviour gave them 
express instructions in the matter ; at all ©vents they were guided in it by 
the unerring Spirit of truth, as well as in all else they did in relation to the 
worship and doctrines of the church. They would not, they could not 
make the change, unless they had the most undoubted and unequivocal 
authority. It is sufficient for us that the Apostles instituted and observed 
it themselves, and that the church has in all time considered its observance 
obligatory upon herself and upon all men. It is dangerous, therefore, to 
wink at the apostolic precept : " forget not the assembling of yourselves 
together." 

And now, my brethren, if the obligation of that which was the shadow 
of the Lord's glorious day, was so great, as that the infringement thereof 
was punished with death among the Jews, how much greater must be our 
obligation to observe our Sunday, when the grounds of its institution are 



5V 

so much higher. How much more strict and binding upon us to keep holy 
this day which was appointed by the companions of our Lord, if not by 
our Lord Himself, to celebrate a victory and deliverance spiritual and uni- 
versal. How careful should we be to keep it holy, knowing that it is the 
Lord's day ; and how anxious should we be to know our duties on that 
day, that we may fulfill its holy ends and purposes. 

We are commanded, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, to sanctify this 
day by an entire cessation from all Ocular labor, and to consecrate it as a 
day of rest to religious exercises. We are regularly to attend public wor- 
ship ; to join in the prayers and praises of the Church ; these being the great 
and holy ends of the sabbatical institution. Nothing can excuse us from 
staying away from church, but circumstances over which we have no con- 
trol. We are not to attend church, or come into the holy convocation, for 
the same purposes, that, I am afraid, many of us do ; but to hear God's 
word read and expounded, and join earnestly and fervently in the public 
services of the church. We know that some come, not from a sense of 
duty, or for the sake of example, but merely because it is fashionable. 
They come in the morning when fine dresses can be seen to advantage ; 
but in the evening they stay at home to spend the holy hours of the Sab- 
bath in idleness and listlessness. Some attend church from a fear of being 
considered irreligious ; thus making the church and religion so many wires 
in their worldly policy of expediency. Others again, come with designs 
upon their neighbors, and even on the preacher ; to gain capital for gossip 
and tale bearing — to have something to find fault with, or at all events, to 
criticize. All who do this, certainly do not sanctify the Christian Sabbath. 

In order to meet the moral ends of this day, the Christian must on every 
Communion Sunday partake of the holy sacrament. If he do not this, he 
not only desecrates the Lord's day, but also despises another moral precept 
delivered by our Saviour immediately before his death ; and tempts and 
grieves his Holy Spirit, by turning coldly away from His proffered mercy. 
Such defile the Lord's day, by an act at once foolish and dangerous ; 
which proclaims to the world that we have no part in Him who bought us 
with His blood. It is also necessary, in order to keep this day holy, that 
we should engage ourselves in searching our hearts, to see if they are more 
attached to the will of God than they were on the preceding Sunday. We 
are to take a true and just account of the sins we have committed during 
the week ; and then pour out our souls in confession and repentance of 
them in secret prayer. We are also to call to our remembrance the many 
mercies we have received during the week, and during our lives ; and then 
render to the kind Giver of every good and perfect gift, humble and hearty 
thanks for them all. We must give ourselves, on this day, to holy medi- 
tations ; to reading the oracles of the living God, and strive to extract 
8 



from them that knowledge which will make us wise unto salvation. We 
are to abstain from all works, except those of charity and necessity. Works 
of charity were performed, on this day, by our Saviour Himself ; and since 
we have such an example, we must, if need be, seek out objects of charity 
around us, and do all that we reasonably can to alleviate their sufferings, 
relieve their necessities, and administer comfort to them in their sorrows 
and afflictions. We must abstain altogether from works of a secular na- 
ture, such as engage us during the we%k, and employ our ordinary time — 
selling and buying, bargaining about goods, and calculating gains and 
losses, and all that would not be in keeping with the holy and solemn pur- 
poses of the Lord's day. We are also to avoid all silly amusements and 
sinful entertainments, however popular, fashionable, or polished ; because 
polished ungodliness is the most fascinating and dangerous. This day 
must be spent alone in that for which it was designed — to the service 
of God. 

This is not all. We are commanded to see that all in our houses, and 
within our jurisdiction, man and beast, the stranger that sojourns with us, 
abstain from labor on this day, as we do ourselves. It is our duty, there- 
fore, to bring our children, our servants, and all over whom we have con- 
trol or influence, to church on Sunday. Some think that this is going 
somewhat too fast. It is no faster than the law itself; because it requires 
not only ourselves to obey its injunctions, but to do all in our power to 
use all just and reasonable means to make others do the same. Here then, 
is a brief outline of our duty with respect to the Lord's day ; to which the 
following sublime promises are made. " Is not this the fast that I have 
chosen ? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and 
to let the oppressed go free ; and that ye break every yoke ? Is it not to 
deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast 
out , to thy house % When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him ; and 
that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh. Then shall thy light 
break forth as the morning, and thy health shall spring- forth speedily ; and 
thy righteousness shall go before thee ; the glory of the Lord shall be thy 
reward. Thou shalt then call, and the Lord shall answer : thou shalt cry, 
and He shall say, here I am." 

But the penalty of defiling the Lord's day, this holy and solemn fast, is 
as terrible as the promises are glorious and sublime. See a type of it in 
the punishment which was inflicted on the denier of the Jewish Sabbath. 
To which are we, not as individuals, but as a people, entitled : — to the 
promises or to the penalties ? You yourselves will be the judges. A pub- 
lic censor is often deservedly branded with shame. The man who ceases 
not to fasten upon public follies and vices, for the mere purpose or pleasure 
of becoming a public censor, has no disposition to counteract these vices 



and follies— lie neither seeks the truth, nor does lie want to speak it, that 
its ends may be accomplished. His object is only to make a noise — he is 
a man of bad faith. Therefore, his censures often brand himself with 
shame. The public cynic is to be scorned. Let the public itself be the 
censors of its own vices ; and the cure will the more speedily come. Be 
ye then your own judges in the matter before us. 

Have we, as a people, a Sabbath, a seventh day of rest after six of 
labor, or no ? Do we sanctify one day in seven to our Creator and Re- 
deemer, to commemorate at once the stupendous works of creation and 
redemption ? What is the answer. Let us hide our faces with shame, for 
the truth is, that as a general thing we have none. Throughout the seven 
it is one unremitted scene of labor — one continued smiting with the fist of 
wickedness ; one monotonous pursuit of riches amid the strife of business, 
and of man and beast struggling under the " yoke of hire" relieved indeed 
at intervals only by frivolous amusements and flagitious festivities. As 
this festival of festivals is ushered in upon the ceaseless tide of time, it is 
greeted with astounding oaths, dreadful blasphemies ; with the drunkard's 
song and the howl of the wearied midnight reveller. The ordinary business 
of life is not suspended, although the loud denunciations of Almighty God 
are uttered against its transaction. Even those who claim to be friendly to 
its observance, will not hesitate to offer the most empty excuses for their 
desecration of this day. They think that the necessities of competition in 
business are a sufficient excuse. Cannot the ground of this heartless excuse 
be traced to the blindness of the public mind to the sabbatical obligation ? 
Because one man opens his shop upon Sunday, does this necessarily compel 
and excuse his neighbor to do the same I Has the loss of a few dollars 
of a Sunday more terrors for them than the anger of God ? Does the pos- 
session of a few coins, less or more, weigh heavier with them than a well 
pleased God and an approving conscience ? It indeed would be a serious 
temptation to a man, if he could gain the whole world at the expense of 
his own soul, but it is beyond description strange to see a man jeopardizing 
salvation for the sake of the miserable profits of a Sunday's business. Why 
was it instituted at all ? why are the doors of the church thrown open ? Is 
it not to call man to the remembrance that he is a creature, and that, too, 
a redeemed creature ; to make him forget the things of this world, and to 
look forward to the hour when death and judgment must overtake him ? 
that the inhabitants of the earth may have a day of rest, a day of holy con- 
vocation, a day wherein to exercise mercy to man and beast % 

But why are our churches deserted \ Does our neglect, as a people, to 
meet in the sanctuary, come up to the carefully worded caution in the 
law, " Remember to keep the Sabbath day holy V Are our idle excuses 
for non-attendance truthful and worthy \ Put it to your consciences with- 



out delay. Look tremblingly at the word " Remember," and then look, 
without vanity or pride, upon your cities, towns, and villages. Mark the 
groups of irreligious and besotted idlers who crowd your saloons, while the 
church bell is tolling loudly the sacred hour of public worship. Listen to 
their degraded conversation, shouted forth in shameless ribaldry. Hear 
the confused ring of bottles and glasses, the rolling of billiards, and see the 
gaming table bestrewed with cards as if this day were a day of special 
license. Hearken to the sickening din of business and to the bewildering 
whirl of amusement, as if this day were set apart to forget that there is a 
God, a Creator and Redeemer. The very beasts of burden, wretched only 
in being made subject to man, seem, with a painful instinct, to dread this 
holy day, for their jaded limbs, which ache for rest,, cannot be suffered to 
enjoy any on account of our business and amusements. This day brings 
no rest to our man-servants, our maid-servants, nor our cattle* Our greed 
for money, our selfishness, our love of vain amusement, not only urge our- 
selves into the heated pursuits of ordinary life, and into the most unseemly 
frivolities on the Lord's day, but all around us, under our control or influ- 
ence, both man and beast, must labor on this day, either to feed our avarice 
or satisfy our passions — thus adding one day more to the number of days 
ia which the weary toils of life may lawfully be undergone. The theaters 
are thrown open, the drama procures its multitude of gazers, while the 
message of peace can only be delivered to the few. Men and women 
whose object it should be to correct the moral tone of society, flock into 
this house of pleasure on the Lord's day, when they should be in the sanc- 
tuary on their bended knees, confessing their sins and imploring pardon. 
The profane song is listened to with rapture by hundreds, while the holy 
hymn of praise and thanksgiving is faintly sung by a few voices. Even 
the turmoil of business and the ceaseless stir of our diversified amusements 
disturb the public devotions of the small assembly of worshippers. " King- 
Richard" is strutting the mock stage of life in tinsel and mock majesty, 
before a numerous and enraptured audience, while the sounds from Calvary 
reach the ears of but few. A proficient in high or low comedy ministers 
to the people on this day, when the priests of God should be ministering 
to a dense and holy convocation. On this day, the avaricious merchant 
and the grog seller finger their gold, while the coffers of the church are 
scarcely replenished by the widow's mite. The sounds of busy trade are 
heard in the open mart, while the elevated tones of the pulpit rebound in 
hollow echoes from deserted walls. It is indeed a mournful fact, that the 
Lord's day is turned into a day of labor, of amusement and of misery to 
man and beast. Sunday desecration has become a national sin, and suffer 
me to tell you that there is no other sin so strongly indicative that religion 
baa lost its hold upon our minds, and that we are fast hurrying to the tomb 



61 



amid the wrecks of the sacred things and institutions for which martyrs 
bled and which our fathers revered. 

Has it ever struck you that the blessed rest of the Sabbath is emblematic 
of the eternal rest which awaits the people of God ? He, then, who cannot 
rest from labor one day out of seven, to hold communion with his God, 
cannot hope for rest in eternity. He who cannot find pleasure in meeting 
his God in the sanctuary one day out of seven, will not find it in being 
with Him throughout eternity. Oh, my brethren, the very name of the 
Sabbath is peace — its holy hours speak of joy, mercy and repose. In many 
lands, this day brings peace to the friendless and homeless, rest to the 
weary children of labor, and relief to the companions of sorrow. Even the 
generous beasts of burden seem to know its stated return. Like the balmy 
hours of sleep, it cuts up the troubled life of man into welcome intervals of 
rest. Its calm and holy hours bring along with them, to this lower world, 
the tranquillity of heaven itself, and as they fleet silently away we feel as if 
we were present with angels and spirits who rent the heavens and came 
down to bear us company in its holy work. Soft, soothing, cheering, are 
its blessed influences upon the soul. 

Let us, therefore, my brethren who profess to be Christians, watch over 
this day and keep it as we would our souls. Overthrow this little under- 
stood, and as little valued institution, and the salvation of man is in emi- 
nent peril. The worship of God will be forgotten, darkness will overtake 
the nations, and man will again become a savage for want of Christian 
instruction. But observe it as it should be, and a thousand evils which 
already afflict society will soon be obviated. Observe it 1st, "As a day of 
rest. 2. As a day of remembrance of creation, preservation and redemp- 
tion. 3. As a day of meditation and prayer, in which to cultivate com- 
munion with our God. 4. As a day of joy, in which we commemorate 
the defeat of hell and the grave. 5. As a day of public worship whereon 
the church celebrates her marriage. 6. As a day of praise, and faith, and 
hope, whereon the Apostles' tears ceased to flow on beholding their risen 
Lord. *7. As a clay of full anticipation, on which we can look forward to 
that eternal and blissful Sabbath that remaineth for the people of God." 



SERMON VII, 



THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 



Test — Exodus xx, 12 : "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days 
may be long in the land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee. v 

We have now reached the " Second Table." 

Whether a thiu£ be right because God wills it, or whether God wills it 
because it is right, is a question which can only have a chann for specu- 
lative Christians. It is sufficient for us to know that He wills us, both to 
fulfill duties to Himself and to our neighbor, hence we may be assured that 
it is light to do so. The man who sits at Jesus' feet, and runs to do His 
will, troubles not himself about such matters. 

Every intelligent being knows that he stands in certain relations to his 
God, and that these very relations entail upon him certain duties which 
God's law requires to be fulfilled. He is also notified of the fact, in reason 
as well as revelation, that he is essentially a social being, certain duties 
being due by him to his neighbor, and by his neighbor to him. Man was 
intended for society, inasmuch as he was commanded from the beginning 
" to multiply and replenish." We see God's rational creatures, both men 
and angels, existing in " collective bodies." We may conclude that the 
social system was an original intention of creation. Relative duties, then, 
from the nature of the case, must necessarily arise. We find them dis- 
charged by the righteous and forgotten by the wicked from the creation 
itself, so that the law respecting them must have been known to man from 
the very beginning, else righteousness or wickedness, obedience or disobe- 
dience, could not have existed until such law was delivered to Moses. 

The particular laws of the Decalogue respecting our duties to God, cer- 
tainly presuppose some general law with respect to the same, to have ex- 
isted from creation. Those we owe our neighbor, also presuppose another 
general law known to man from the beginning. These two general laws 
are only particularized in the law and the prophets. If this be so, then 
what we call the moral law must have been the will of God from all eter- 
nity ; it must have existed in the divine mind, deep in the abyss of the 



63 



eternal substance. It came to dwell with the sons of men " in the likeness 
of God's offspring ;" to reveal the truth, the wisdom and goodness of the 
eternal Father. We must believe, therefore, that God made man essentially 
a social being, because the second portion of His eternal will stipulates 
certain duties which can exist only in the social system, and which man 
could only have an opportunity of discharging as being associated with his 
fellows in societies, communities and nations. In no other condition can 
such relative duties exist. This social state implies a diversity of condi- 
tions among those who compose it, else the relative duties implied in the 
law would at once be abolished. Hence, then, unequality of condition must 
have been in the eternal mind, coeval with the law. It is the variety which 
makes men necessary to each other in the social body, and puts upon them 
all the relative duties which the law respecting our neighbor comprehends. 

But this diversity is at once a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing, in- 
asmuch as God intended it to be a source of righteousness and happiness 
to man. It is a curse, in that man himself, by abusing this wonderful and 
mysterious appointment, has almost invariably made it productive of the 
most fatal and heart-rending evils. Mankind by mankind groans under 
affliction and suffering. " Man's inhumanity to man, makes countless 
thousands mourn." 

If the law with respect to our neighbor were respected, this diversity 
would infallibly prove to be a most blessed and merciful dispensation. Man 
would not so often complain in bitterness, that God hides His countenance 
and covers Himself with darkness. Nor would he be compelled to mourn 
in sadness over the scene of man overcoming man — the strong oppressing 
[he weak — the rich the poor — the great the small, and the high the low. 

As we approach the law respecting all these relative duties to our neigh- 
bor, it would be well, probably, to direct your attention shortly to the two 
features of that " Epitome " which comprehends and is supposed by the 
particular laws of the Second Table. " Love thy neighbor as thyself," is a 
precept which inculcates the purest, most magnanimous and most universal 
philanthropy. It is the moving spring of that charity which covers a 
multitude of sins — which is the milk of the gospel, the glory of religion, 
and the sublimity of Christianity — that queen of Christian graces which 
outshines faith, even that faith which brings heaven down to earth, wherein 
the substance of all our hopes is seen as in a glass, and by which the glories 
and mysteries of the invisible world sweep themselves before the soul. This 
charity is also better than hope. Hope shall be lost in " a full fruition, ' 
when Gabriel's trumpet shall awake the dead ; it will be swallowed up in 
reality as the crashing world will disappear. But charity shall remain 
fresh and immortal, like the soul itself, as long as eternal ages will continue 
to roll away, while the bright glimpses of faith will lose themselves in the 



64 



eternal tide of heaven's glory, and the resplendent visions of hope will be 
more than realized in the abyss of that felicity which has no name. 

"Do unto all men as ye Avould they should do unto you," is the practi- 
cal feature of this "Epitome" the other being the inward affection or 
moving principle. This is the outward action, the visible evidence, the 
palpable testimony of the completion of the ever blessed duty of charity or 
love to man. If we admire a natural benevolence, how much more that be- 
nevolence which is the source of an exhaustless flood of kindness and love, 
surging always from the renewed heart. Like the loving mother, from the 
treasures of whose breasts the children draw their kindest nourishment, so 
at the shrine of Christian charity may all the sons of men come, without 
fear, and draw thence the treasures of a pure and universal love. This is the 
soft virtue which quenches the devastating flame of anger, and extinguishes 
for ever the consuming fires of revenge. It subdues and mollifies the im- 
placable determinations of the will, and casts abroad a calming oil upon 
the troubled waters of all our passions. It goes far beyond the limits of 
cold justice, and reaches far onward to the realms of a warm, merciful and 
Christian equity, the boundless confines of which can alone check its over- 
flowings. It turns away with horror from all unkind feelings, words and 
actions, but looks steadfastly to the interests, comforts and prosperity of all 
without distinction. All injury, all cruelty, all injustice, all ill-will, wrong 
and oppression retire before the beams of its boundless compassion, its 
sweeping sympathy and resplendent liberality. This is Christian philan- 
thropy. 

Now, my brethren, we will glance at the extent of the obligation we are 
under to put this charity into practice, or at the rule by which the practice 
of it is to be regulated. Some conclude, at first sight, that the precept, 
" do unto your neighbor as you would have him do unto you," calls upon 
us to do unto our neighbor whatever we might wish him to do unto us. If 
this were so, we would have the mere wishes of men, however sinful and 
unwise they might be, as our guides in the practice of Christian chanty. 
A man, no doubt, is required to do unto his neighbor as he would wish his 
neighbor to do unto him, if such wish would be consistent with his duty to 
God and his neighbor. If a man should wish his neighbor to rob for him, 
he is by no means required to do it. If he should wish him to do some 
impossibility, he is by no means called upon to do or attempt it. If a man 
should wish his neighbor to do something which would be detrimental to 
his own interest and prosperity, or that of his family, he is by no means 
required to comply. A man wishing from his neighbor anything unrea- 
sonable, sinful, offensive to conscience, or greatly inconvenient, or really 
hurtful, he is by no means bound, on account of his wish, to do the same, 
because the law prohibits both the doing and the wishing of such things. 



65 



We must do. unto our neighbor as we would have him do unto us, in such 
a way as we will not infringe upon the will of God, or in a manner which 
will be governed by those rules which govern us in our duties to God, our 
neighbor and ourselves. No man should certainly wish anything from his 
neighbor, but what he himself could or would be willing to do for his 
neighbor, without intrenching upon the laws of God, the spirit of revela- 
tion, or the dictates of conscience, or on the eternal rules of right. 

But does a rich man do his duty by not relieving a poor man, because 
he does not wish the poor man to relieve him ? By no means ; for the 
absence of the wish, on the part of the rich man, does not exempt him from 
the duty of relieving the poor. If he were poor, he would certainly wish 
to be relieved, therefore he must suppose himself in the poor man's place — 
duly weigh and consider his distress, and whatever he could fairly and 
reasonably expect in the shape of relief from the rich man, he is bound by 
the precept to tender to the poor. When the rich man supposes himself 
in circumstances of poverty and distress, he will surely have the. wish, and. 
think it reasonable and dutiful, that those in different circumstances should 
relieve him. Hence it is our duty, in many cases, even when we have 
neither the wish nor the need that our neighbor should do anything for us, 
/ that we do many things for him the same as if we had the wish and the 
need. We see, then, that the rule respecting our duty to our neighbor, 
imports nothing more than this : That whatever we can, consistently with 
Christian honor and justice, with reason and conscience, desire of our 
neighbor in our own circumstances ; whatever would become him, in our 
circumstances, to do to us in charity and consistent with his duty towards 
God, his neighbor and himself, we are certainly obliged to do the same unto 
him. This is indeed showing that we love our neighbor as ourselves. 

The particular laws supposing the general law respecting the duties of 
man to man, are reduced in the Decalogue to the number of six — the first 
of which is the text. It especially relates to the duty of children to their 
parents, according to the flesh. But the Church teaches that its obligation 
extends much further. In her catechism, we find that it legislates for those 
duties we owe our superiors of every kind. She, as the commissioned 
guardian of truth and the expounder of duty, teaches that this law obliges 
us not only to honor our natural parents, but also all such persons as 
stand in certain relations to us analogous to father and mother, or to whcm 
we stand in a certain relation similar to that of children to parents. 

The following instances from Scripture will show what I mean. Joseph 
was called a father to Pharaoh, because he was "Lord over all his house, 
and a ruler throughout the land." Job was a " father to the poor," because 
he searched out their cause. The Levite, who came to dwell in the land 
of Micah, became unto him a father, because he was consecrated priest 
9 V 



66 



over Micah's bouse. This same Levite became a father to a whole tribe, 
because they took him to be their priest. As Elijah was swept up to 
heaven by a whirlwind in a chariot of fire, Elisha cries, " My father, my 
father," because his mantle covered him with the spirit of prophecy. The 
servants of ISTaamau, the leper, called him father, because he was their 
master. Joash, king of Israel, calls Elisha father, because hes gave victory 
to her chariots and strength to her horsemen. St. Paul calls himself father 
to the Corinthians, because he had begotten them in the gospel. We are 
not, then, to understand our natural parents alone, as meant by the expres- 
sion "father and mother" in the commandment, although they include 
them. The obligation of the law implies our duties, not only to our natural 
parents, but also those duties we owe persons whose office, position, age, 
dignity, or some other superiority demands from us some particular homage, 
respect or obedience. Hence, the church has laid out the important rela- 
tions of life, as follows : 1. Of children to parents. 2. Of the people to 
those who rule over them. 3. Of scholars to teachers and governors. 4. 
Of ordinary Christians to their spiritual pastors or ministers. 5. Of servants 
to masters. 6. Of the young to their superiors in age. 7. Of the poor 
and lowly to their superiors in station and dignity. And some add, very 
properly, of wives to husbands. This law, then, includes all the duties 
which these chief relations in life imply, and all the .other minor duties 
which may be reasonably and justly referred to them. It does more. In 
its equity, it requires from all, who are to be honored by us, a return of 
duty, because they are to be so honored. Hence it legislates for parent as 
well as child, for ruler as well as subject, for master as well as servant, and 
so on. If our relations to certain persons make it our duty to honor them, 
surely the equity of the thing would require from such persons, who also 
stand in certain relations to us, a return of duty, and so to conduct them- 
selves towards us, as that they may discharge the duties which these very 
relations necessarily imply and demand. Accordingly, then, must we treat 
of this comprehensive law. 

The first duty inculcated by this law, is the honoring of onr natural 
narents, and it is accompanied with a special promise in the Decalogue 
itself. It is a duty of all others the most natural and reasonable. " Honor" 
in the sense implied here, comprehends all the love which the child should 
have for the parent; all the obedience which that love would dictate; all 
the respect and esteem which the tender nature of the relation supposes ; 
all the gratitude which is grounded in a sense of deep and lasting obliga- 
tion, and all the succor and help which the parent naturally and justly may 
demand from the child. 

The relation existing between parent and child, is the sweetest, tenderest 
and closest upon earth. Nature has bound the parent and child together 



61 

with cords which the grave itself cannot cut asunder. They will be parent 
and child long, long after this world will sink away into night and ruin. . 
The relation is eternal. The felicity of the household, of society and of the 
nation, greatly depends upon its proper culture, for its influences are felt 
vividly wherever man may dwell. Disobedient children will dishonor every 
other relation of life, and careless parents will do the same. 

The child is to love its parents, because, like the heavenly Father, they 
loved it first. From the moment we were conceived in the womb, our 
lives, our very existence was wrapt up with them in the most mysterious 
way. From the moment our infant eyes opened to the light of day, their 
nursing hands sustained our weakness and ministered to our little wants, 
which we ourselves could neither express nor satisfy. The mother — 'tis the 
sweetest word in human language ! — the mother from day to day rocked 
the cradle and sang us to our slumbers, as if her very life depended upon 
the issue. Our infant food was taken from the deep and hidden fountains 
of her bosom, wherein a heart was pulsating for us with undivided and un- 
wearied affection. She soothed our infant cares and suffering with the 
tenderest attentions, while her heart was gushing over with warm prayers, 
which surrounded us with guardian angels. She watched with fond and 
jealous anxiety, the growing form and developing mind, caressing the one with 
the earnests of an undying love, and filling the other with teachings which 
were breathed into her own soul by the inspiration of God Himself. She 
smoothed the commencement of life's rough journey, prepared our unsteady 
feet for the weary pilgrimage, and defended us from a thousand impending 
dangers which we ourselves could neither see nor overcome. While the 
bitterness of many sorrows might be crushing her own heart, while her 
spirit might be weeping under the sinkings of life's ills and trials, her affec- 
tion and anxiety for us stood fast and unchanged. Friends might take a 
long journey and forsake us, the rags and scantiness of poverty might be- 
come our inheritance, all the world might forget us and treat us as the 
outcasts of men, but the mother could not forget the fruit of her womb. 
The constancy of her love is almost compared to that of God's love. " A 
mother may forget her sucking child." It is only barely possible, but 
God can never forget. Years of sorrow and suffering may blight her 
heart, yet there always remains in it a green and a tender spot for her off- 
spring. From our infancy to our age, the lambent flame of maternal love 
flickers not ; the winds and tempests of this wilderness cannot blow it out, 
nor can the deep snowdrifts of these wintry wastes prevent its pencilled 
beams from reaching the tender plants which she would have bud and 
blossom in her heart. Let our condition in life be what it may, in misfor- 
tune or fortune, the spirit of the mother will go with us wherever we wan- 
der, and will attend us like an anxious shade. If we are in sorrow, th© 



68 



maternal tears will well out and flow in pure sympathy ; if in joy, the ma- 
ternal smile will shed a genial beam over the brightness of our prosperity. 
All our happiest recollections, like a sparkling constellation, cluster around 
her knee. Our days of innocence and peace fleeted away in her compan- 
ionship. We can remember that her teachings were sweet, and that her 
eludings were gentle ; that her voice was more pleasant to us than the 
sighing of the summer wind, and her face fairer, more welcome to us, than 
the holy harvest moon. She it was who planted in our breasts the earliest 
seeds of virtue, and nursed them there until our hearts emitted a holy 
odor and burned for the perfection of good. She is often, as it were, a 
martyr for her offspring, even while experiencing no return of love or sym- 
pathy from them. She often endangers both her soul and body for their 
happiness and comfort, even while she has the sad knowledge of the fact, 
that she is uncared for or forgotten by them. And even on her very bed 
of death, when' sinking into the cold and skeleton arms of the king of terrors, 
her last prayer, her last sigh, her last look is given for the children she leaves 
behiud, to be buffeted by the storms of life, when she will be far, far away, 
and unable to help, relieve, comfort or sustain them in the hour of trial. 

And what may we say of the sterner parent — the father. Although his 
affection is expressed in a less softening and winning manner, yet his offices 
partake no less of that pure and undying love of which the child is too 
often the abusing and unworthy recipient. He it is who procures a home 
and shelter, and provides food and raiment ; w T ho surrounds us with ail the 
necessaries and comforts of life. He goes out into the world and meets 
with all its cares and experiences all its cold and stern repulses, that his 
children may be fed, warmed and clothed. He toils in the heat of sum- 
mer and amid the snows of winter, without murmur or complaint ; up with 
the dawn of day, and often wasting the midnight oil ; his energies often 
overtaxed, his body wearied and his mind harrassed with serious cares, that 
his little ones may be provided for. He arms himself for the battle of life, 
that his offspring may be above the cold charities of the world, and that his 
family may enjoy every temporal comfort and blessing. It is his strong 
and ready arm that secured us from wrong, oppression and injustice, and 
defended us when w r e were unable to defend ourselves. It is he who pro- 
vided us with the blessings of education, and all the other necessary pre- 
parative qualifications to enter upon the" great stage of life for ourselves. 
He took a part in all our joys and sorrows, corrected us in mercy and pru- 
dence when we had gone astray, and encouraged us in his ripened wisdom 
and experience when we had done well. One great aim of his whole- 
life was to place his children beyond want and above humiliating depen- 
dence, and to leave to their enjoyment a competency when he should be 
mingled with his mother dust. 



69 



Is it possible, then, after the toils, the cares, and sweet offices of our 
parents, performed for us their children, that we would dare to withhold 
from them the love, the obedience, and the gratitude which not only the 
relation itself calls for, but also which the law of God so loudly demands ? 
Is it possible that children can be found who will not tender the reverence 
and esteem to their parents, which God Himself so positively declares to be 
their due ? It is true that no child can help feeling an instinctive love for 
the parent, but this tails far short of what Ave understand by filial duty. 
Filial love and esteem are much holier and exalted things than mere instinct. 
The lower animals blindly obey the impulses of instinct, without reason or 
understanding, because the end of it is not in the creature but in the Crea- 
tor. There is no promise given to instinct, but the law with respect to filial 
duty is the first of promise. This duty is a reasonable and enlightened office, 
which includes gratitude, or a deep sense of obligation for the kindness and 
labors of parental affection ; charity for the foibles, shortcomings and infir- 
mities ; reverence for the persons and wishes, which implies a ready will to 
please them in all things, and a fear to offend them in anything ; a patient 
and meek submission to their corrections, respect for their advice and 
teaching, and a steady determination to succor them in old age and in the 
hour of misfortune, if such be possible ; full and ready obedience to them in 
all things which are lawful ; a cheerful and unwearied execution of their 
behests, even should such run counter to our own inclinations. The law is 
absolute — the rule is universal — " Children obey your parents in all things 
and the only restriction to such obedience is immediately added by the 
Apostle, " Children obey your parents in all things in the Lord." This 
love and honor are not to be given to one parent only, if we have two. 
The law requires that both be treated alike, the mother to be honored as 
the father, and the father as well as the mother. While honoring the one 
we must not dishonor the other, for each has equal claims upon our esteem 
and obedience, and each has such high calls upon our love and gratitude, 
that nothing on earth can excuse us in being derelict in our duties towards 
them. 

Nothing can be more cruel, nothing more heartless, than the want of due 
love and reverence in a child towards its parents. It is a picture of the 
darkest ingratitude and depravity. Instinct itself cries loudly against it — 
nature, reason and revelation denounce it as a crime worthy of the fiercest 
judgments and the most signal punishments. That we could forget the 
companions of our earliest day s f the guardians and nourishers of our tenderest 
years, the sweet sympathizers with all our joys and sorrows, those who 
tended us in our weakness and defenselessness, and in their meridian of 
love would not even suffer the winds of heaven to blow too rudely upon us> 
those who abode with us in sunshine and in shower, who loved us with a 



10 



love which the grave itself cannot extinguish — that we could forget thern, 
I say, is a frightful and a crushing possibilty. But that there are children 
who not only forget their parents, but also help to drag down their grey 
hairs with shame and sorrow to the grave, we have no doubt at all. Bear 
witness to this, California, thou land of ten thousand wrecks, for against 
the day of reckoning a flood of parental tears are treasured on high — a long- 
coursing stream of parental sighs is gone up to the throne of God, and hath 
already risen in judgment against you — a countless array of bleeding and 
broken hearts of parents are crying for vengeance to come upon thee spee- 
dily. A cry comes forth from the sleeping dead, terribly heavy with curs- 
ings and judgment ! You have robbed an army of parents of their darlings 
— you have left them without a single hope but the dismal one of the dark 
and lonely tomb ! What strange, dark thoughts people the bosom when 
we contemplate the disobedience of children to parents ; a crime which out- 
rages instinct itself, belies nature, and puts reason and revelation to the 
blush ! How the soul recoils from looking fully upon the damning truth. 
Parental affection forgotten, counsels of love despised, the kindest offices 
of life repaid with unsparing ingratitude, love with rudeness and contempt, 
numberless benefits met by disobedience, fond hopes cruelly extinguished 
for ever by filial prodigality, high expectations and bright dreams mantled 
with impenetrable gloom by filial turpitude and crime. Oh, perish the 
man who is so devoid of heart, feeling and compassion ; banish him from 
among men, for he is no man — -he is a miracle of ingratitude. How is it 
that a man can steel his heart against the first duty of nature ? how is it 
that he can banish from his bosom the sacred and gushing recollections of 
home — those sweet memories which center in them who nursed him from 
infancy to manhood % How is it that he can turn away from that blanched 
cheek and silvered lock ? How is it that he can close his ear to that weak 
and trembling voice, eloquent with an imperishable love ? How is it that 
he can put speed to those tottering limbs, as they hasten to a sorrowful 
grave ? — can direct the barbed and poisoned arrows of grief against that 
head, already crushed under the press of years and sorrow ? Oh, how can 
a man put a crown of thorns upon that brow, already bleeding with the 
infirmities of age, and saturate the dyiug pillow of father and mother with 
the burning tears of a broken and desolate heart ? 

But certain duties are owing by parents to their children. Between 
parent and child there are mutual dependencies ; they have, also, mutual 
rights ; hence there are mutual duties. The parent owes his child love — 
not the love of instinct, but the reasonable love of a reasonable parent. 
Such love includes three duties, viz. : careful training, providing, and sus- 
taining. We are told that he who provides not for his own house, "is 
worse than an infidel." This does not mean merely to provide the bare 



necessaries of life which instinct itself teaches, but many other things which 
befit the interesting and tender relation of - parent and child. Parents are 
to provide their children, when the proper time comes, with a useful, virtu- 
ous and religious education, so that when they come of age they may pro- 
vide all things honestly for themselves, and that they may become exem- 
plary Christians, and thereby useful and reliable members of society. 
Parents are especially commanded to bring up their children in the "nur- 
ture and admonitiou of the Lord," hence the parent, in one sense, has a 
commission from God Himself, to exercise a part of the sacerdotal office 
for the benefit of his children, i. e., to instruct them in all duty, to teach 
them the Christian religion, to set its hopes, before them and impress upon 
them its high obligations and its exalted motives. It is also necessary that 
such instruction be rendered effectual upon, the conduct of the child, by 
the example of the parents, so that the instruction may not become as 
" pearls cast before swine." The parent must bring his children in infancy 
to the baptismal font, that they may receive the seal of the Christian cove- 
nant — that they may not grow up like uncircumcised Philistines, but may 
have a right, as the children of God, to all the privileges of the Church. 
The parent must teach them to respect and reverence everything relating 
to God and His Church, so that when they grow up, the Church may not 
be offended in them, nor religion scandalized. The parent must govern 
his children well — encouraging them when they do right, and promptly 
punishing them when they do wrong. In ruling over them, the parent 
must be gentle, even and courteous — not passionate, heady, capricious, 
foolishly indulgent nor tyrannical, lest the children may be discouraged or 
become disobedient. The parental government must be such as will secure 
the child's respect and affection, and at the same time his prompt obedi- 
ence ; hence the government must be mild, yet strict — it must display no 
passion, peevishness nor tyranny, but all that which might be referred to 
love. On the other hand, it must not be lax or capricious, sometimes loose 
and sometimes strict, or the child will soon lose all respect for it. It must 
not be partial, overlooking some faults and correcting others, but be grave, 
prompt and judicious in all matters, great and small. The parent, in his 
government, may be compared to a bishop — he must " be so merciful that 
he be not too remiss, and so minister discipline that he forget not mercy. 



» 



SERMON* VIII. 



THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT.— (contikued.) 



Text — Exodus xx, 12 : "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days 
may be long in the land tohich the Lord thy God giveth thee? 

We have proposed to take up the chief relations of life in detail, as they 
are specified in the Church catechism. Having considered already that 
existing between parent and child, we begin to-day with the one between 
Governor and Subject. 

The various forms of government in the world, of course do not do away 
with the obligation of the apostolic precept, which inculcates subjection 
to "the powers that be." They are ordinances of God. "to be a terror to 
evil doers, and a praise to them that do well." Hence, every man is bound 
in duty to respect the executive of any government, of whatever form, 
for conscience sake. As is generally supposed, the duties of the governed 
and him governing, are not the dicta of mere opinion or choice,, but they 
arise out of the necessity of the case, and the gospel speaks of them as 
things of a moral nature. There is no such thing as perfect independence 
or liberty, however much men may talk about it. It is a fond fancy, a 
pleasing chimera. The very existence of government supposes subjection, 
and subjection is nothing else than a dependence or kind of bondage. A 
government may be as enlightened and liberal as possible, yet so long as 
it is government, it must necessarily subject those governed to obedience, 
and obedience is a kind of servitude. Since crime must be punished, life 
and property protected, order and society preserved, men must be ruled ; 
and being ruled by force of law, this thing of entire liberty has no existence 
whatever but in the day-dreams of noisy patriots and philanthropic fanatics. 
Government demands the homage of respect from the well doer, of fear 
from the wicked, of obedience from all. A demagogue, for unworthy ends, 
may make the multitude believe that they are no longer subjects but sover- 
eigns, yet there is neither philosaphy, reason, nor religion in his wicked 
doctrine. " We are perfectly free," is saying nothing less than that 
there is no law, to which the very existence of society gives the lie, because 
law is necessary to society. 



13 

To show that government or political power is an ordinance or appoint- 
ment of God, we have only to look at the institution as it originally existed. 
This power at first was delegated by God Himself to Parents, which fact 
implies the necessity of governing and being governed. It also shows us 
that the intention of the institution was to keep man in a state of subjec- 
tion, that he might fear to do evil and be encouraged to do well. It was 
next delegated to patriarchs, then to rulers and judges, and last of all to 
kings. So we see that government, in whatever form it may assume, is 
after all a kind of parental authority or prerogative. But it would be ex- 
treme folly in the child to say that subjection to parental restraint or 
authority is a matter of his own choice, and to act accordingly, because it 
was not of his own choice that he became a child. It would also be as 
foolish tor the parent to say that he became the ruler of his child from 
choice, and to act accordingly. No one believes that the child had any 
choice in the matter, nor even the parent himself, because the moment the 
relation of parent and child came to exist, that moment, without reference 
to choice at all, were governing on the one hand and being governed on 
the other necessitated, and that moment did the obligation involved in the 
relation, become imperative and absolute. It is exactly similar in the case 
of ruler and subject. Although the kind of ruler and manner of ruling 
may be a matter of choice, yet the simple necessity of ruling and being 
ruled, does away with all choice in this particular. This simple necessity, 
being an unalterable appointment of God for moral ends and purposes, the 
obligations involved in it are as immutable and binding as those in the case 
of parent and child. If it were a mere choice on the part of the people to 
be governed, their obligations to be ruled would only be binding upon them 
just as long as they might choose to consider them so, and no longer. 
Then government would not be an appointment of God, but the result of 
an ordinary compact entered into for the sake of expediency, which thing 
would imply no great moral obligation whatever. This, although it might 
not possibly do away with the object of government, would make all gov- 
ernment extremely uncertain, because it would justify the people (if they 
should happen to choose or think it expedient), to revolutionize, to over- 
throw, to change, over and over again, every government as often as their 
fancy might dictate. This would imply that the expediency, or even the 
necessity of government, results from choice, which is a gross absurdity. 
It would also justify the people in having no government at all, which 
the nature of the case sternly contradicts. 

The Scriptures, my brethren, are the best political philosophy in the 
world, being the oracles of Him who is the origin of all power, and the 
originator and upholder of all government. They abound with the most 
positive and explicit teachings on this subject, to the effect that the gov- 
10 



erned are as mucli bound to discharge certain duties to the government, not 
because they choose, but because they are obligated, as children are to 
discharge their particular duties to parents. The ruler, on the other hand, 
is as much bound to fulfill his duties to the .subject, not indeed of choice, 
but of obligation, as the parent is to discharge his particular duties to the 
child, because the obligation, in both relations, are fixed by the same wise 
God, on the same unalterable and necessary principles of right. Govern- 
ment, then, is an institution of God and* not of public choice. The only 
thing left to such choice is its form, because God, for wise purposes, did 
not see fit to restrict man to any particular form so long as the original in- 
tention of the institution could be carried out. Let the form be what it 
may, the reciprocal rights, liberties, comforts and good of all parties con- 
cerned, are to be maintained under the strictest obligations. 

The first duty, then, to be observed by the subject, is submission. We 
are to submit to the king, or other ruler, for the Lord's sake. This is the 
gospel law, which nothing on earth can abolish, unless, indeed, such ruler 
so behave himself as to infringe upon the unalienable rights and liberties 
of the subject, by becoming a tyrant or abandoning all the essential and 
fundamental principles of righteous and regular government. The subject 
is also obligated to maintain both the laws upon which such government 
is founded and which it administers, not only by obeying them himself, but 
also by seeing that they are obeyed by all under his jurisdiction, and, if 
possible, by all those on whom his teaching and example can have an in- 
fluence. He must live quietly, soberly and orderly, under the law as it is 
executed by the ruler, always observing the rule, " render unto Caesar the 
things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." He 
must support the government by a contribution of his means, and "if in 
danger of being dishonored or overthrown, his duty calls him to its defense, 
either by his counsels in the halls of his nation, by supplying its officials, 
according to his ability, with the usual means' of defense, or by taking the 
field himself in its cause as the devoted patriot and soldier. He must not 
keep sedition secret, nor connive at it, nor wink at it, but must give timely 
notice thereof to his government, using all the lawful means in his power to 
crush it himself. He must bring the lighted torch into the dark places of 
conspiracy, that his country may have timely warning to escape calamity, 
and by the arm of its power lay hold upon the discontented. He must 
discountenance every kind of rebellion and counteract it to the best of his 
power, ere the storm breaks forth to desolate and disorganize society. He 
must cultivate a due respect and esteem for the religious institutions of his 
country, and must banish all mal-content from his breast. He must not 
resist his government until it so entrench upon his rights and liberties, as 
that his conscience will dictate that resistance, which is sometimes neces- 
sary, and therefore lawful. 



15 

There are. here two questions to be considered. What is to he done 
when the civil power makes laws and demands obedience to them, which 
would cause the subject to transgress the laws of God and offend his con- 
science ? What is to be done by the subject, when a lawful matter of 
difference exists between the State and him — when the ground of complaint 
on the part of the subject is an unqualified encroachment on the part of the 
State, on the public rights and liberties ? What kind of resistance is law- 
ful, or is any kind so ? The first may be answered in a few words. In all 
cases we are to obey God rather than man, and like Daniel of old, we 
must submit patiently and trustingly to the unjust punishments for our dis- 
obedience to the unrighteous laws of man. We are not so much to fear 
him who can kill the body only, as Him who can cast both body and soul 
into hell. The other question is somewhat more difficult to answer. It 
must be the fijst duty of the subject to weigh the matter well, to see 
whether it be a just cause for resistance to the civil authorities or no. 
If it be a just cause, he must discover who is right and who is wrong, and 
then act as his own conscience and the gospel precepts may direct him. 
But when there is no question of conscience, no real infringement on the 
rules of Christianity or on the public rights and liberties, it is, without 
doubt, his duty to take sides with the civil authority, since in such a case 
he is bound by the law of God to support and sustain the civil magistrate 
for the Lord's sake. But if the civil magistrate should be guilty of en- 
croachments on the civil and religious liberties of the people — if he should 
so abuse his power as to render the people seriously unhappy by trampling 
upon their rights — if he should practise injustice with the strong hand of 
oppression, and turn his government into a complete misrule, what kind of 
resistance ought the people to adopt that their rights and liberties may be 
secured to them ? When a case of mal-administration is clearly made out, 
the resistance of public opinion or sentiment is generally sufficient to put 
an end to it. This kind of resistance is quite admissible, when the great 
mass of the people experience the evil, and when there is no other way left, 
to counteract it, and when the public good will be subserved by it. But 
even in such a case, such resistance must be made in a peaceful and 
Christian spirit. ' No tumult, riot or violence may accompany it, else it 
will become unlawful, and more than likely defeat its own ends, simply be- 
cause it would be " doing evil that good may come." It must be done in 
such a manner as will place the ruler in a fitter position, surround him with 
better persons and more propitious circumstances, in order that the public 
good may be secured in peace as becomes Christians. But is the resistance 
of arms justifiable at all ? It is scarcely so. Certain extreme cases, indeed, 
seem to justify this kind of resistance— but since misrule generally carries 
along with it its own cure ; since the generality of evils which ;t nation or 



community can complain of against the civil magistrate, may generally be 
got rid of by a gentler kind of resistance than that of arms, it would cer- 
tainly seem that armed rebellions cannot find justification save in very ex- 
treme cases, and happily these are few. 

We can suppose a case. Say that the civil magistrate, by the aid of a 
mercenary army, compelled the people' to surrender their rights which the 
laws of God give them, and which the laws of .man ought to allow them to 
enjoy ; say that all the laws of the Constitution were overthrown, and that the 
ruler employed a foreign sword to subject the people to his oppression, to 
sacrifice their dearest and highest interests— that he treats with unrestrain- 
ed mockery and contempt the authorities of the Constitution, and that his 
object is clearly to subvert all liberty and do away with the ends of all right 
government; and that he would do all this by the force of arms, in the 
most malignant hostility to the wishes of the great mass of the people. In 
such a case as this, and in all parallel thereto, the resistance of arms would 
be justifiable, L e., if the people would be deprived of every other means of 
redress. But the subject has often thought it a justifiable cause why he should 
renounce allegiance to the ruler, that the ruler persecuted him for the sake 
of religion. The church in her infancy underwent a number of the most 
frightful persecutions, yet in no instance did she rise in arms against the 
government which persecuted her. She only taught forbearance, meek- 
ness and patience, and deemed it a glory to be called upon to suffer for 
Him who purchased her with His blood. The subject, therefore, is called 
upon now to emulate her example under the same, and, indeed, under all 
circumstances, because his Master endured the same meekness and patience. 

There are many other questions involved in this subject which we might 
consider with profit to ourselves, but not having the space, we will desist 
with the injunction : let each citizen be guided in such matters by his con- 
science, the precepts of the gospel, and by the examples of the best and 
most eminent Christians. 

Since the ruler and subject have reciprocal rights and duties, we will 
name a few of the ruler's chief duties, and then pass on. All his counsels, 
public acts, designs and enterprises, must be carefully ordered for the good 
of the people. He must take care to avoid oppression and injustice, to ad- 
minister the law with firmness, prudence, gentleness, wisdom and modera- 
tion. He must be as a father unto his people, by providing them with the 
best and readiest means of education, and by securing to them all civil and 
religious liberty. He must not only by law, but by his own precept and 
example, foster and protect Christianity among his people, and use every 
lawful means in his power to eradicate from their moral condition, all dis- 
order, all vice, all discontent, all enormity and all irreligion, in order that 
they may be a powerful, happy and prosperous people. 



We come now to the Scholar and Master, The scholar stands in 
somewhat the same relation to the master as the ordinary Christian does 
to his spiritual teacher, and the master to the scholar as the spiritual teacher 
to the ordinary Christian. The duties of the scholar are simply these : to 
receive the instructions of the master with thankfulness and respect ; to be 
diligent in making proper use of their teachings ; to be obedient and res- 
pectful in their deportment towards them, and by all their conduct to en- 
courage them in their arduous and important labors. The duties of the 
teacher are, in brief, as follows : to be faithful and watchful in all his teach- 
ings ; to see that they be suitable to the capacity and conducive to the 
well-being of the scholar; to give to each scholar the necessary instructions 
according to his need, and in such a manner as will make them the more 
readily comprehended and the more effectually received ; to correct faults, 
to point out dangers, help out of difficulties, and to encourage all useful 
study and industry ; to punish when there is necessity, and to praise when 
such would be suitable and profitable, that the scholar may persist in well- 
doing, and to be diligent in guiding him to that knowledge which is most 
valuable and praiseworthy, by the most suitable and effectual means and in 
the most approved manner. 

We will next say a few words respecting the duties of Servant and 
Master. The relation of master and servant must exist as long as there 
will be diversity of conditions in life. God has callen some to labor while 
His providence raises others above it in wealth and fortune. To prevent 
this relation from being abused, the Scripture legislates the duties which 
are to be observed on each side. Servants are commanded to " count their 
own masters worthy of all honor." This, of course, teaches diligence in the 
discharge of everything committed to them — faithfulness and honesty in 
every particular of their servitude ; cheerfulness and care in the manage- 
ment and execution of their master's business ; respect and obedience to 
their commands, and esteem for their persons and positions. Servants, in 
fact, must make it a matter of conscience to discharge all the duties included 
in submission to the " yoke ;" abstaining from all peculation, theft and 
fraud, wasting of their master's goods, and misspending of their time. They 
must show the same alacrity, cheerfulness and honesty in their masters' 
absence as in their presence. Their sendee must not be for the eye of man, 
but from the heart as being for the eye of God. These, in brief, compre- 
hend the duties of the servant, for which the equity of the law demands a 
return from the master. Masters are not less amenable to this law than 
are servants. Their duty is to conduct themselves towards their servants 
with condescension, kindness and affability ; to avoid being tyrannical or 
supercilious, and to respect their feelings ; not to treat them with harshness 
or contempt, nor to lay upon their shoulders unreasonable burdens which 



78 

would cruelly tax their strength and patience ; to be humane in word and 
in deed ; to secure to them what will add to their comfort, happiness and 
contentment ; strict honesty in paying them their hire ; to be punctual in 
fulfilling what was promised, as to time and amount ; not to demand from 
them what would be an oppression ; to allow them a reasonable time for 
God's sendee, for rational recreation and for rest ; to instruct them in their 
duty with gentleness ; to inculcate upon them by precept and example, the 
practice of religion, and to see that their interests, temporal and spiritual, 
are attended to — because in God's sight all men are equal, as having one 
master and judge, who is in heaven — who will bring master and servant 
equally to account in that day when all distinctions of earth will be done 
away with forever. 

The chief duties of the Young to the Old, are these : The young are to 
pay due regard and respect to the experience and wisdom of the aged, 
while overlooking their foibles and infirmities, in charity and consideration. 
They are to receive their counsels with gravity, neither insulting their grey 
hairs nor affronting their age by making light of what they advise. Let 
me say to the young before me, that notwithstanding Young Americanism 
may be a fine thing, yet Young Americanism should always remember the 
classical proverb : " Know all men from youth to age, that the gods hate 
impudence in youth." 'Not only do the gods hate impudence in youth, 
but all good and sensible men are exceedingly disgusted with jDrecocious 
impertinence. Premature independence is downright impudence. The 
young should remember that the day will come when the truth will bitterly 
force itself upon them, that age with all its infirmities and tardiness is a 
proper object of youthful respect and honor. The aged, on the other hand, 
are to take a kind of charge over the young ; never to withhold their coun- 
sels when necessary ; to give them the benefit of their ripened experience 
and wisdom ; to teach them patience and prudence by example as well as 
by precept ; to spare not reproof when they see the fires of youth become 
too hot, and to bring the treasures of calm and frigid age, the unfevered 
and serene counsels which will check the impetuosity of youth* It also 
should be their care to inspire the youth to an emulation of their virtues, 
and to pursue that course which, when the almond tree will flourish, will 
make their silver locks a crown of glory ; and, above all, they must be 
careful to make the young " remember their Creator in the days of their 
youth." 

The duties of the low in station to the dignified and of the poor to the 
rich, are as follows : They are neither to envy them for their dignity or 
possessions, nor are they to conduct themselves with sullenness or bitter- 
ness, but on the contrary, since they are called upon to give honor to whom 
honor is due, they must award proper respect and honor to their more for- 



19 

tuHate and more dignified brethren. They must not hate them nor desire 
to do them any malice or wrong. They must not endeavor to arouse 
prejudice against them by lying or evil speaking, but behave towards them 
discreetly, charitably and courteously, according to their several stations. 
The rich and dignified, on the other hand, must remember that in the sight 
of God all men are equal, and that He who gave can also take away — 
hence they must not bear themselves towards the poor or lowly with offen- 
sive pride, contempt or arrogance. They must by no means despise them 
because they are poor and of low degree, but rather relieve their poverty and 
cover their nakedness. They are to remember that rags often hide the 
noble Christian, the unostentatious patriot, the glowing heart and virtuous 
mind ; that under a mean exterior, all the requisites of the truly noble and 
great repose, and that in this world of suffering and poverty, " there is many 
a delicate and beauteous flower, which, though it blushes unseen and wastes 
its fragrance on the desert air," yet for beauty and loveliness would grace 
the kingly hall, and load the atmosphere of the noble's bower with the 
richest and sweetest perfumes. The rich and dignified should remember 
that with the grave end all earthly distinctions, and that small and great 
will meet on the same level before Jehovah's awful throne — that titles and 
trappings cannot go with them to the home of the dead, but that mercy, 
charity and humility will do more for them in the hour of judgment, than 
all the honors of life — all the riches of the world. 

But now, my brethren, I have come to the most delicate relation of life, 
viz. : Husband and Wife — in order to point out to you a few of its chief 
duties. Probably I am somewhat a blind guide in the matter, but since 
I have followed the old beaten track in all the other relations of life, I will 
do the same in this — nothing can be said new or striking. The wife is 
the keeper, in a great degree, of the husband's honor, and to a greater de- 
gree the keeper of his happiness ; therefore her conduct, in all things, should 
be extremely judicious and circumspect. She is bound by the sacred baus 
of holy wedlock, to love, honor and obey her husband, and she must, there- 
fore, keep her virtue as pure as the" crystal well or as the virgin snow. 
The marriage bed must not be defiled. She must not be so proud and 
heady as to exercise the prerogatives of mistress and master, because God 
made her subject to man as a helpmeet to him. She must conduct herself 
modestly, soberly, mildly and courteous. Her speech to him must be 
kind, affable and discreet, that there be no contention, for "the contentions 
of a wife are a continual dropping." A shrew does violence to the house- 
hold, and it is a hard matter to tame her. The wife must love her husband 
and none besides him, because the Josephs of this excessively polite age are 
like angels' visits, few and far between ; hence if the wife be faithless and 
headstrong, a whole family is easily ruined and disgraced. She should 



SO 



have no secrets from her husband, no sly amours, idle flirtations or girlish 
freaks. She must consult with him on all family matters, and be obedient 
to his commands for the good and comfort of her house. She must submit 
with patience to becoming reproof, and be contented with what can be 
honestly provided for her. She must harbor no secret dislike for her hus- 
band, nor manifest such by treating him scornfully, lightly or shrewishly, 
in public or in private. She must sacrifice her own will and inclinations, 
when she discovers that they, would be prejudicial to his happiness and 
interests. She must not give way to railing when reproved, nor irritate 
him by returning silly and angry answers, but on the contrary she must 
relieve his sorrows by a cordial sympathy, and enhance his pleasure by a 
warm and hearty participation. Her dress must not be outrageously ex- 
travagant, as is too often the case, nor must she deem herself above being 
useful. Her attentions to the husband must not be forced for the sake of 
mere display, nor must her affection for him be counterfeit — got up for 
particular occasions and for the eyes of the world. It must be true and 
constant, as becomes her connubial vow. She must overcome all extrava- 
gant habits which she might have contracted, for they will ruinously tax 
the income of her husband. In fact, the wife must serve the husband as 
the Church does Christ — making her duties a matter of conscience and not 
of expediency, and the practice of them a sincere testimony to her faithful- 
ness in the married life. 

The husband, on the other hand, must allow his wife to participate in 
all his property and honor, not as mere acknowledgment of her fellowship 
with him, but as an earnest of his love for and faithfulness to her. He 
must not dishonor her bed as some think they have a license to do, but 
must esteem the wife's honor sacred, and her person the only legitimate and 
best object of his affections. He must not suffer his affections to be divided, 
one moment here, another there, but must steadfastly keep them concen- 
trated on his wife, who alone is their deserving object. He must treat her 
with all respect, kindness and affability in public and private. His words 
to her must be courteous, chaste and winning, and his conduct in all res- 
pects mild, gentle and loving. He must not assert, in a rough manner, 
that he has authority over her,- nor must he demand her obedience to such 
authority by any harshness or tyranny. He must yield to his wife in all 
trivial matters, to avoid strife, and suffer her to manage her own affairs 
without useless annoyance or molestation. He must never reprove her 
without a sufficient cause, and even then with kindness and caution. He 
must never try to make her feel that she is an insignificant thing by neg- 
lecting her, by bearing himself loftily and proudly towards her, nor must 
he ever make her feel that she must live with him in fear, on account of his 
jealous and haughty disposition. He must not act the part of a mean and 



81 



petty tyrant by submitting her actions to a strict but insulting scrutiny, nor 
withholding from her the suitable enjoyment of the reasonable pleasures of 
life. He must treat her honorably and courteously before children, servants 
and strangers, and never reprove her but privately, and even then without 
peevishness or temper. He must remember that his wife has feelings and 
a temper of her own, and that by rudely assailing her, her affection and 
respect will soon be weaned from him, and that he will cause her to see him 
in the light of a petty lord, a mean and vexatious tyrant, unworthy of any 
obedience or respect whatever. He must not be guilty of continually flat- 
tering her, because it may probably end in making her a fool — perhaps 
worse ; but he must be ready at all times to show her all those little atten- 
tions and marks of kindness of which the generality of women are so fond. 
He must insist on nothing which would not become his wife's sex, or that 
would outrage her delicacy, her virtue or conscience. He must not betray 
to her any impurity, nor afflict her with the manifestation of any low or 
beastly habit. He must consult her tastes, respect her opinions, and study 
her disposition. She must be provided for with care, so that no needless 
pain or trial may be given her. Her love must be reciprocated with 
promptness and warmth, else she will grow cold and the house, will be 
ruled by a couple of formal icicles. The husband must teach the children 
and servants to pay her due obedience and respect, and his own conduct 
must warn strangers to abstain from attempting any undue familiarities 
with her and all insulting approaches. His conduct from home must be 
such as that he can report it to his wife without a blush. The drinking 
shop must be abandoned, the gambling house must never be visited, all 
loose habits must for ever be thrown aside, old associations must be forgot- 
ten, and the house of the strange woman never be thought of. Eegular 
hours and regular habits, a Christian life, a religious deportment must take 
the place of all these, or wo, wo to the wretched woman who becomes the 
victim. 

If such a course as I have here laid down, were to be pursued by many 
wives and husbands in California, how different would the histoiy of the 
State be % The public prints would not be recording our disgrace in daily 
lists of suits for divorce. We would not be shocked by the recital of 
startling crimes committed by faithless women, and by cruel and licentious 
men. Perjury would be almost silenced — the knife and revolver would be 
hung up upon the wall, and the gallows itself would be robbed of many of 
its victims. Society would regain its tone, and our people would at once 
gain the confidence and respect of mankind. But alas, the marriage com- 
pact amongst us seems little better than a frivolous promise — at best as a 
mere civil contract. This plucks the brightest jewel from the crown of 
society and tramples it in the mire. Hence we see adultery — a crime of 
11 



which we will soon have to speak — stalking in our midst without a blush, 
and there is scarcely a murmur of disapprobation heard against it. We 
hear of men who are driven to despair and to all manner of vice, that they 
may forget the crimes of faithless wives. We hear also of murders com- 
mitted by the avenging hands of outraged and dishonored husbands. We 
hear of women deserted by heartless men — left alone in bitterness of heart 
to struggle through life, burdened with the sole care and support of the 
traitor's children, with no one to relieve their loneliness or to pity their tears. 
Intrigues and desertions are almost as common as larcenies, and the public 
sensibility is scarcely stung. The most criminal of acts is daily brought to 
light in our very public courts ; and if report be tame, the walls of private 
dwellings and hotels, if they had tongues, could " tales unfold" which would 
more thoroughly "harrow up the soul" than the sepulchral tones of an 
angry spectre. 

But look at our children — what is their conduct to their parents ? All 
indeed that bad breeding can make it. Before they can with safety leave 
their mother's apron strings, they betray an independence of action which 
is portentous of evil. The boy does what he likes, says what he likes, and 
goes where he likes — and he is pronounced smart ! ! There are no children 
here — they are all young gentlemen and ladies. ISTor have we servants ; 
these are as ready to command their superiors as their superiors to com- 
mand them — yea, more so. There are no such things here as dignity and 
manners ; an ignorant swaggerer holds his head as high as the man of 
acknowledged ability, who stands at the helm of affairs. A proverbial 
tippler and idler lays claim to as much respect as the best men of the land. 
To explain the reason of this, would, I fear, be out of place. 

There is a promise attached to this commandment in the words, " that 
thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God give'th. thee." 
The land promised was the Land of Gaanan, and the possession thereof was 
to be long and peaceful if the Jew would obey the law. But if the Chris- 
tian will obey this law, he will enjoy peace all his days — he will be sur- 
rounded with all the happiness and pleasures of this life which are the 
natural effects of obedience to this law, and when he conies to die, since 
God cannot violate His promise, he will take possession of the heavenly 
Caanan, as an heir returning from a long journey, to dwell for ever and 
ever in the home of his Father, where none can disturb him in the posses- 
sion of his inheritance. 



SERMON IX. 



THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 



Text — Exodus xx, 13 : " Thou shcdt do no murder" 

There are, as I conceive, three kinds of murder : 1st. The unlawful 
and willful taking of the life of our neighbor upon malice or forethought, 
in whatever way or by whatever means the .crime may be committed. 2d. 
Self murder or suicide, winch is the willful and deliberate taking of our 
owm life. 3d. Heart murder, which is the seeking of another man's blood 
— the wishing or designing the death of our neighbor, although such de- 
sign or wish may never be put into practice. "We are told that "he who 
hateth his brother without a cause is a murderer." 

Murder is the last and greatest crime against society wdnch any man may 
commit. The greatest criminal cannot plunge deeper into the abyss of 
ciime ; it is the final goal of turpitude — the crowning outrage against God 
and man — the final victory of the arch-fiend over humanity, and the only 
crime which all nations, heathen as w T ell as Christian, punish with the 
greatest of human penalties — death. 

Although murder is killixg, yet it must be distinguished from it be- 
cause it is a killing of a particular kind. Accidental killing is not murder, 
because there is no premeditation, malice or malignity accompanying the 
act — no intention or design actuating the killer. Murder must also be 
distinguished from what is called lawful killing," although such be intend- 
ed or purposed. Lawful killing is intended to meet the ends of justice and 
law for the sake of society and wholesome government, hence there is no 
malice in the act, although it may be premeditated — it is only the punish- 
ment of murder. The killing of enemies in a just war is not murder, though 
designed and premeditated. Nor is the killing of a man in self-defense 
murder, although the act is intended and voluntary. All these are to be 
distinguished from that crime, because the attendant malignity or malice 
which constitutes murder does not accompany the killing. 

But there is a kind which some think to be murder and others not, of 
which we will take a very short notice. Is the killing committed in 



84 



Duelling justifiable or no ? The teachings of Christianity, beyond all dis- 
pute, go against the unlawful killing either of our neighbors or of ourselves. 
There must be some -sufficient ground or cause to render the taking of life 
lawful or justifiable. No man may dispose of his own life or that of his 
neighbor, unless he is called upon to hazard it for the sake of religion, the 
good of society, or for the safety of his government and country. He may 
also, without blame, hazard his own life in attempting to save that of an- 
other. In all such cases, duty calls upon a man, if need be, to lay down 
his life. And the man who does so, although he has been contemptuously 
called a suicide to duty, is yet, on the contrary, by the generality of man- 
kind deemed a sincere Christian, who testifies to his faith even unto death 
— a true and magnanimous patriot who is deserving of the praise and 
gratitude of his country, and a noble hearted philanthropist. There is no 
duty involved in duelling which can possibly justify the taking away of 
our neighbor's life, or the sacrificing of our own. It has no calls whatever 
but those of mistaken, i. <?., false honor. Paley says, " Whatever human 
life is deliberately taken away, otherwise than by public authority, there is 
murder. If unauthorized laws of honor be allowed to create exceptions to 
divine prohibitions, there is an end to all morality as founded in the will of 
the Deity, and the obligation of every duty, may at one time or other, be 
discharged by the caprice and fluctuations of fashion." If this be so, 
Duelling being only justifiable on the fluctuating laws of a fashionable 
honor, which differ in various nations and change with the other changes 
of the age, those who hazard their own lives in it and attempt to take away 
their neighbors', become at once liable to the serious charges of suicide and 
murder. He who is killed in a duel, is not only guilty of suicide but also 
of an attempt to murder his adversary, which, in the sight of God, is mur- 
der in the proper sense. And he who kills his adversary in one, is not 
only guilty of murder properly so called, but also of suicide, inasmuch as he 
exposed his own life voluntarily and causelessly to be taken away ; which 
thing, in intention, is nothing less than suicide. Duelling can only be jus- 
tified on the right of man to avenge himself for some real or imaginary 
injury or insult. Vengeance belongs to God alone, and man is strictly pro- 
hibited from seeking it. Hence, since duelling is a mere seeking of ven- 
geance on the part of man, so far from being justified, it is as deeply cen- 
surable in the sight of God as murder or suicide, with which we may 
identify it. The duty of every Christian is not only to return good for evil, 
but also to chasten his thoughts so that he may feel ready to forgive all 
injury. The character of the true gentleman is, that he will neither insult 
or injure his neighbor, and he will not be insulted or injured in turn, but 
will forgive the insult or injury inflicted. This is the spirit of Christ, and 
he who has it has certainly the best ideas of honor. 



H5 



If I should, do an injury knowingly or otherwise to any one, it is clearly 
my duty to hasten a reconciliation with my brother, by making ample 
reparation if possible, and if not, by suitable apology. And if my brother 
do an injury to me, it is as clearly my duty to receive his - reparation or 
apology as it is his to make it; and on the other hand, it is as clearly his 
duty to receive my reparation or apology as it is mine to make it. There 
can be no law grounded on the fluctuating sentiments of fashionable life, 
which can possibly change the law of God with respect to murder or sui- 
cide. There is no argument of the polished or honorable murderer 
which can invalidate the unchangeable law — " Thou shalt do no murder." 
All the great Dukes and Lords that ever lived and deemed themselves the 
very pink of honor — all the villains that ever reduced seduction to a science 
or profession — all the great novelists that made blood-thirsty fools of their 
heroes and viragos of their heroines, or that called the " moon and stars to 
help them" to disseminate fashionable yet false morality — all the high-toned 
statesmen that ever uttered ponderous speeches and carried extraordinary 
measures — all the knights of the bowie-knife and revolver, that ever shed 
innocent blood in city or backwood — all the bloated, blaspheming ruffians 
that ever disgraced a Christian people — should they all go hand in hand 
and be supported by all the beautiful arguments for the fashionable usage 
of duelling, yet after all, they could make nothing of it but unqualified 
murder. 

But are there any palliating circumstances which may possibly attend 
murder ? For the honor of humanity, we must allow some. Great and 
almost irresistible provocation may be taken as a mitigating circumstance. 
It is not so much a justification of the crime as a reason why the punish- 
ment of it should be mitigated. A man may have the misfortune of a hot 
and almost ungovernable temper. Certainly this is not his fault but his 
misfortune, yet he knows it to be his duty to overcome it. "When, there- 
fore, he suffers his passions to overcome him, it is no longer his misfortune 
but his fault. When a wanton injury is done such a man, we can easily 
appreciate his difficulty to exercise Christian patience and forbearance, 
which is his duty under the circumstances. On account of this great diffi- 
culty he has to contend with, it is but justice to make some allowances for 
him. His temper masters him, and for a time he is afflicted with a short 
but violent insanity which rendered him all but unaccountable for his ac- 
tions while it continues. Having had no time for meditation or to calculate 
the consequences, although there may indeed be a degree of malignity 
displayed in his action, his punishment is to be mitigated, yet his crime, in 
the sight of God, is by no means justified. It is the bounden duty of all 
such men to cultivate good temper, and to pour the oil of Christianity upon 
the fires of their dispositions ; to feel at all times in a state of mind to 



m 



receive injury and insult with calmness, and practise placability and for- 
bearance in the hour of greatest trial. Oh, how many things are perpe- 
trated in the rage of passion and heat of anger, which the perpetrator a 
moment after would give the whole world to have undone. Many a noble, 
brave and generous minded man, in one moment, while he became an 
" intellectual savage," destroyed his own peace of mind forever ; blasted 
irrecoverably the prospects of his own family, and forced his friends to seek 
dishonorable graves. How true is it that a passionate man is his own 
worst enemy. He may avenge himself upon his enemy, yet there being- 
no wisdom or policy in his revenge, it recoils bitterly back again from his 
victim upon himself. He punishes the object of his hate, and in so doing- 
he punishes himself. He should indeed remember that the absolute and 
universal law of "love thy neighbor as thyself," makes no special allowance 
for him. Men may suppose they do not subtract from the measure of the 
law by resenting every affront with a high hand, and dealing out vengeance 
as if God would never take any account. But it is not so, because God 
lays it down as an unchangeable condition of our own forgiveness, that we 
be ready to forgive those who trespass against us. The spirit of anger 
being utterly inconsistent with that of Christianity, to indulge in it, foster 
it or obey it is a crime of itself, but to commit a crime such as murder 
under its influence, is only adding crime to crime and aggravating the 
thing in the sight of God. 

But admit that an outrage of such a nature is committed against a man 
who attempts to destroy the chastity of those dear to him. Say that his 
honor is brutally assailed in the person of wife, sister or child, or that a 
blow is struck at all his happiness, which he feels more poignantly than any 
that the murderer himself could inflict — is the man so injured justified in 
shedding the blood of him who thus injures ? Human nature would almost 
answer yes. But the unostentatious forbearance of Him who resisted unto 
death, comes up to contradict the promptings of the unregenerate heart — ■ 
" do good unto them that despitefully use you." His prayer — " Father 
forgive them for they know not what they do" — teaches us that we must 
not even give way to a revengeful and unforgiving spirit ; far less that we 
should put the unrelenting determinations of such a spirit into execution. 

But can drunkenness be urged as a palliation for murder ? If a violent 
temper, which is a kind of insanity, if the perpetration of a bitter and cruel 
outrage, cannot, in the sight of God mitigate, far less justify murder, surely 
the beastly sin of drunkenness, or any other criminal excitement similar to 
it, cannot possibly excuse murder or any crime whatever. Sin cannot jus- 
tify or palliate sin, however much it may aggravate it. The law which 
forbids murder, forbids also all incitements to it ; and violent temper, thirst 
for vengeance and drunkenness, with many other things, being such incite- 



8Y 

merits, are sternly forbidden, and so far from being a ground of excuse, are 
really aggravations of the crime. 

Having now briefly noticed the kinds of killing which are not murder, 
and a few of the popular excuses which are fastened upon by some to make 
what is murder lawful or justifiable killing, we will come to the crime itself, 
and view it in its consequences, that we may avoid whatever tends to it. 

There is no man with any decent share of moral susceptibility, but 
recoils with horror from the bare idea of murder. The man who does not, 
has hardened his heart by an habitual contemplation of it. Its cruelty and 
aggravation involve many things, each of which is sufficient to blast the 
human soul with eternal dismay and cover humanity with a veil of shame. 
Most other crimes sink away into insignificance before it. There is not a 
lost spirit in the regions of eternal night, which can boast of a more damning 
guilt than that involved in murder. The arch-fiend himself can go no 
further in his enmity to God or man, than does the murderer. 

1st. It is a most outrageous affront done to the Most High God. It 
takes out of His hands one of His most fearful and righteous prerogatives, 
viz. : the holding of "the issues of life and death." It is a w T anton and 
remorseless destruction of the most beautiful handy work of Jehovah — of 
those creatures who bear upon their fronts the indelible impress of their 
great Creator — of those creatures whose faces look proudly to heaven, the 
home of their immortal souls. It is an injury done Him who can alone 
claim the right to give and to take away life, being the Lord of all His 
creatures, and none can blot out His image from the earth in one of them, 
without at once affronting and injuring Him in a special and singular manner. 

2d. It is the foulest and most malignant crime against nature. Our fellow 
man is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. AVe have all the same com- 
mon father and mother. The same ties of love and affection, the same sorrows 
and the same joys. We have the same hopes and fears, and are traveling 
to the same silent home. We have all the same common bonds binding us 
together for mutual defense and protection. All these are the results of one 
common law in our nature. But murder, at one merciless blow, destroys 
them all, and by so doing, outrages nature with the greatest possible violence. 

3d. It is the greatest crime against society. Society is assailed by it in 
the rudest manner, and in the most effectual way. Its bands are snapt 
asunder by this crime of crimes. Its very existence is partially done away 
with, and should the blows of the assassin be continually repeated, society, 
in time, would be completely overthrown ; humanity stagger to the grave 
shrieking and covered with bleeding wounds ; the human race pass away 
under the hand of violence, until the murderer would stand alone on an 
unpeopled and desolated earth, trembling at the guilty throbbings of his 
own heart, and fleeing from the startling echoes of his own guilty voice. 



8c? 



The sun might then refuse to rule the day, and the moon and stars by night 
—these lights of heaven might be extinguished to this world forever, for 
there would be none left to complain but the murderer ; primeval night 
might again brood over the face of the deep and eternal darkness cover 
the everlasting hills, for there would be none but the man of blood left to 
dwell upon the earth. 

4th. It is an awful, an irreparable crime against wife, husband, children, 
relations and friends. It desolates the wife's home, it covers her hearth 
with a hoar frost which no prosperity can warm. The undying memories 
of him who sleeps in the bloodstained winding sheet, will thickly people 
her bosom, rendering her a victim to the darkest melancholy and most 
distressing sorrow. It deprives her in one moment of all her proper means 
of comfort and support, and completely paralizes her natural energies, leav- 
ing her a smitten wreck amid the pitiless storms of life. It clothes her 
with the weeds of that widow whose very tears are eloquent in the cause of 
vengeance, and whose grief is a pleader at the throne of God for judgment. 
It cuts asunder the mysterious, tender and holy bands of matrimony, 
thereby sundering what God hath put together. 

It ruthlessly robs the husband of a most affectionate companion — the 
object of a nameless solicitude. • It wounds his heart with no ordinary 
wound — a wound which will fester there until its pangs rush through his 
soul and madden it with an implacable revenge. The agony of its sting 
may hurry, him into the wildest enormities, until he sinks down into the 
arms of death, a shattered victim to the crime of the assassin. Murder 
ravishes the sweetest blessings of the child. By it its fairest hopes are ex- 
tinguished in the blood of the parent — its prospects ruined and its happi- 
ness blighted. It strikes down at their feet their natural protectors, and 
exposes them as orphans to the cold charities of an unthinking world. 
Despite of God, it gives them the heritage of orphanage, which embitters 
their life with an anguish little short of that which Hagar experienced 
when weeping alone in the wilderness over her dying child. There are 
involved in this crime, to the orphan, a long concatenation of causes, which 
may, and often does, ultimately effectuate a disgraceful and untimely end. 
It deprives the child of those who would not only provide for all its natural 
wants, but also would see that it had the proper education and faithful 
training which would enable it to provide for itself and to sail clear of the 
many rocks upon which so many noble vessels have already been dashed 
to pieces. The child will be a scourge to society in becoming a criminal, 
and will be goaded to criminality by the cruel force of lawless necessity, 
and stumble upon it in the darkness of ignorance, until the ultimate effect 
of the murderer's crime against the child be seen in the fate of the child 
itself, while expiating its own crimes in shame, bitterness and death. 



89 



Relatives and friends are also greviously sinned against in murder. A 
sister is deprived of a brother who would prove to her a second father — . 
would watch her steps with faithful vigilance, and defend her against wrong 
and shame — would shield her in the hour of trial, need and difficulty. A 
brother may often be a sister's only earthly stay, and the hand that robs 
her of such, could not do her a greater wrong. Friends, however few or 
numerous, are grossly injured by the murder of one of their number. It 
very frequently happens, that the welfare of many is involved in. the life 
and prospects of one. We are all less or more dependent upon one another, 
but in the close relationship of friends, this dependence is more vividly felt 
and acknowledged. A man in an extensive business must have many 
friends or acquaintances whose rights, property and prospects are involved 
in some way in such business. Keeping the outrage done the friendship 
and love of such by murder out of view, this crime committed against one 
of them, not only injures the whole but also is sure to ruin some — at least 
all who immediately depend upon him. The larger the circle of friends is, 
and the more . numerous the dependents are, the further does the injurious 
wave of murder roll. Onward does it take its way, until it spends itself far 
out on the bosom of society, leaving many a plan frustrated and hope 
destroyed, carrying far away on its bloody crest the comfort, fortune and 
independence of many, whom the murderer had no idea of injuring when 
he struck the blow. This crime cannot confine its injuries to the individ- 
ual — it sins in one moment' against 'every relation in life. The closer and 
tenderer the relation, the keener and more poignant are its effects felt. The 
criminal himself cannot escape — he sins against himself, his family and 
friends. He commits a kind of suicide in that he renders himself volunta- 
rily amenable by his crime to the laws of his country, the penalty of which 
is death. His parents, his own family, relations and friends, although inno- 
cent, are not only forced to be partakers of his shame, but are also called 
upon to mourn his loss. He who kills himself, makes his wife a widow, his 
children orphans, drags his parents down in sorrow to dishonorable graves, 
and covers his friends, acquaintances and relatives with mortal shame. 
His crime fearfully recoils upon himself and all connected with him. 
It is the same with the suicide. He does to himself what the assassin does 
to another. His crime is at once a foul murder, and irreparable disgrace 
not only upon his own memory, but also upon those he leaves behind to 
suffer its bitterness. He also makes his wife a widow,' his children orphans, 
and cruelly covers parents, relatives and friends with , undeserved shame 
and grief, and not unfrequently plunges them into the wildest confusion 
and ruin. But worst of all, he launches himself into the dread mystery of 
eternity, while God and His ministers of vengeance are witnessing the 
crime which will hurl him to despair. 

12 



90 



But what a crime does the murderer commit against the murdered one 2 
Who can coimt the loss ? A man in full health, enjoying each pleasure of 
life, his heart fixed upon the world, basking in the smiles of an affectionate 
wife and children, in pleasant communion with friends ; to such a man 
sudden death must be bitter beyond conception. A dreadful pang must 
shoot through the soul when everything which he holds dear on earth is 
suddenly shut out from his eye — when all passes away from him as if it 
were struck into oblivion by a sure and sudden thunderbolt. What aston- 
ishment, agony and frenzy must seize upon the soul, and what a trial of 
horror must it experience, on being hurried so unceremoniously into eter- 
nity ? But this is as nothing to what follows. In most cases the victim 
of murder falls dead without having time to breathe a single prayer to 
heaven — to collect his thoughts or utter one ciy 'for mercy. The lips be- 
come as still as marble ere the knife is fully sheathed in the heart. The 
soul takes its awful flight unprepared. Oh God, what dread, what stunning, 
stilling amazement afflicts the spirit at the bare idea of being dragged be- 
fore the judgment seat of an offended God, while it is in the very zenith of 
impenitence, without a moment's warning or preparation — while in the 
very pride of life which excludes God and eternity from the mind. The 
trembling and unprepared soul can alone appreciate such a dreadful situa- 
tion. It hears the judgment uttered which dooms it to eternal wo, and as 
it shrinks back 'from the angry gaze of its God and Creator, its piercing- 
wail, its wild cry of despair, and its frantic lamentations tell the enormity 
of Jhat crime which the murderer has committed. It is an awful ^hing even 
to suspect that the hand of the murderer has plunged thousands of immortal 
spirits into the bitterest torments of hell, one of which a million of worlds, 
with all their pomps and honors, with all their wealth and hidden treasures 
could not purchase. These are but a few of the consequences of murder. 

We will now say a few words with respect to the things which lead to 
this. crime, and which are therefore forbidden in this commandment. 

Ail the inordinate passions of the mind tend to its commission. The 
desire of revenge, the malignity of hatred, the promptings of ill-will and 
iealousy, the fire of envy and the heat of temper are all fathers to this fear- 
ful crime. The demon of revenge stirs up the soul into a blind fury, and 
<^oads the mad avenger with taunts and lying reproaches to seek his vic- 
tim's blood. The madness of hate overturns reason and sours the milk of 
humanity. A man completely under its influence is less placable than the 
tiger whose drink is blood. Anger is a fiend inhabiting the breast, which 
points to death and destruction — which transforms a reasonable being into 
a foaming maniac who thirsts after blood. We are, my brethren, to over- 
come all the passions, to chain down these unruly demons of the bosom, 
for they are the prolific parents of murder. We are to avoid giving offence 



01 



and the infliction of injury; we are neither to quarrel with, nor speak evil 
of our neighbors, for these things provoke murder. We are to abstain from 
every criminal intoxication and passionate excitement, such as drinking 
and gambling, for they are frequently the cause of murder. We are to 
shun all men and their haunts, who are given to these excitements, and who 
are ready to receive provocation and act under it. We are also to abandon 
the habit of having arms upon our persons, lest we be tempted to use them 
while agitated by. passion. There is, my brethren, a great deal included 
in the foregoing few words. 

But as it is an especial 'duty of God's minister to attack every prevalent 
vice which he sees in the community, we must now turn to ourselves and 
see how often and fearfully the command under consideration is broken. 

The carrying of concealed weapons being a temptation to murder, it is 
certainly forbidden. How is it here ? A man really thinks himself un- 
fashionable if he have not his revolver or a gleaming bowie-knife peeping 
out from his belt. In fact, as a general thing, a man thinks he cannot sleep 
comfortably without a pistol or knife being under his pillow. There is no 
use contradicting this — it is an ominous fact. An exchange of shots is 
only a fashionable recreation ; a thrust or two with the knife only a trifle. 
A murder is only killing a max, and that is no great matter. May I ask 
why is this so ? Are men necessitated to cany arms, and if so, why ? 
Simply because at this moment we are acting in the face of the world the 
part of revolted slaves. We have learned to look Upon murder with the 
utmost temper and complacency, and God and man can seek no stronger 
testimony to the awful fact that this dreadful crime is the fruit of our hav- 
ing cast the laws of heaven and earth aside. Once upon a time we would 
tremble from head to foot at a tale of blood ; but what has changed our 
sentiments ? Is it not that we have become familiar with blood ? ' If not, 
can it be in consequence of our great progress in w T hat we proudly call 
enlightenment and morality, or in consequence of having gloriously eman- 
cipated ourselves from the thraldom of the healthy rules of good society ? 
We hear men, as if the mantle of prophecy had fallen upon them, predict- 
ing splendid destinies for this State. False prophets, ye have a more un- 
worthy mistress than Jezebel ; your God is as ungenerous as Baal, but 
your sacrifices are much cheaper. You would barter a few empty puffs 
to stimulate the vanity of the people for their gold, while you would hide 
their duty from them for fear of their anger. Let a people become reli- 
gious and we may safely leave their destinies in the hands of God — these 
are predicted already. Vain flattery is unnecessary. But let such a crime 
as murder stain the people as a people, then no flattery can avert the re- 
vealed judgments which will overthrow them. Prophets or no prophets, 
they must come if God be true. 



02 



Murder could not possibly become so horribly frequent or so shockingly 
wanton amongst us, unless we had sunk beforehand into the dregs of vice. 
Murder comes not to be a trifle in a moment. It is the result of long and 
habitual depravity. Men's minds must be long schooled to turpitude — all 
other crimes must pall upon the human passions ere murder can stalk 
shamelessly abroad. All the minor horrors of which man can be guilty, 
must become habits before murder begins to afflict a people or become one 
of its characteristics. I have heard men, even while standing with them on 
the fatal scaffold, make speeches to justify murder. They actually boasted 
that their education taught them, never to receive an insult without resent- 
ing it — with what? — with death. Where could these men of. the bloody 
hand have received such a high-toned education ? Can it be possible that 
this country can boast of such teachings ? If so, may God, His angels 
and ministers of grace defend us. Yet I fear it is so. California, no doubt, 
has the credit of broaching this new philosophy. This moral flower is 
indigenous to her soil. No one denies that this country is enlightened 
and Christian. But how can we account for her long list of murders 
which is a terrible witness to her having run through every gradation of 
vice, and to her having at length fully consummated it. Her star prob- 
ably is rising and setting from day to day in the " sign of the scorpion." 
"Why, there is scarcely a day that passes but we are regaled with details 
of two or three murders. It does seem, then, that the schoolmaster who 
taught the murder preacher, is abroad. To certify yourselves of this, you 
have only to look at the public prints besprinkled with the record of foul 
assassinations. Only a few months ago, even -here, in the jail of this moun- 
tain village, no less than five murderers were confined, two of whom sleep 
in the murderer's grave in close vicinity to the scene of their mortal dis- 
grace. Not only this village, but every village, town and city has its long- 
list of murders and executions. What bright and glorious destiny can 
come out of this ? A man grows sick while contemplating the insensibility 
of the public to such an array of horrors. A patriot once told his relent- 
less judge, that if all the innocent blood which that judge had shed could 
be collected in one place, his lordship could swim in it. But if all the 
innocent blood with which the land of California is drunk (this land of 
bright destinies), could be collected into one place, gun-boats could en- 
gage it it, nay drown in it. This certainly promises great destinies. It is 
not alone the white man's blood which cries against us, but the blood of 
the rude and defenseless Indian shrieks out for retribution, and it will come 
in some silent watch of the night. Innocent blood has sprinkled the land 
like the dews of heaven. Thousands of mothers have wept bitterly for the 
fate of their children in this land of blood. Thousands of fathers, wives, 
sisters and brothers, are now weeping in the solitude of broken hearts, for 



loved ones who sleep in the grave of the murdered or the murderer, or who 
are wrapt in the winding sheet of the demented suicide. Let the stranger 
come here, and he will ask — why these pistols? why these knives? where- 
fore these insignia of murder ? He will ask why this continual drunken- 
ness and open gambling ? Why this total neglect of religion, shameless 
immorality, Sunday desecration, robbing, plundering, cheating, swindling ? 
Why this display of false independence, this disrespect for the very decencies 
of life, these inordinate passions, quarrels and riots ? Why is man so com- 
pletely changed ? What, think you, would be the answer ? " Oh this is 
a new country — things are not settled yet !" It is quite in keeping 
that California, " this neiv country," should have her new ethics as well as 
her new philosophy. Here you may see that the schoolmaster is abroad 
again. Because the country is new, these things must be expected ; be- 
cause things are not settled, men must become intellectual savages. It is 
indeed a new country, if crime can make it new. It is settled by men from 
old countries, and these men were once Christians. Things are unsettled 
because men have become apostates to the Christian religion ; and the 
country, in this sense, will ever remain new, and things will ever remain 
unsettled until men renew their Christianity. 

The following statement, although it will not add to our high opinion of 
ourselves, may yet become a ground of serious thought to those who are 
fond of rough-shod truth. There is no other Christian country on the face 
of the earth where murdering ruffianism is so complacently tolerated ; 
where open drunkenness and profanity are so shameless ; where wholesale 
rascality, plundering and fraud so abundantly nourish. I confess this is 
somewhat strong language, but when the truth, the whole truth, and 
nothing but the truth is to be told of this country, a man need not be too 
fastidious as to his dialectics — he need not fear that he offends God how- 
ever much he may offend man, by telling the truth to the best of his ability. 

To conclude. The law before us bids us not to do and to do. What, 
then, are we to do ? We must do what follows, then the countiy will be 
old — things will be settled. Instead of murdering, hating and wronging 
each other, we are to do all in our power to preserve the lives of our neigh- 
bors, and to assist in making such pleasant and happy to them. We are 
to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and sustain the friendless. We are 
to forgive all injury received and to make all the reparation we can for 
injury given. W T e are to avoid quarrels ourselves and endeavor to mend 
them with others, silence the tongue of evil report, to heal disputes and 
differences. We are to live in charity, honesty, good-will and peace with 
all men, so far as in us lies, and we are to strengthen the bonds of peace 
and love by respecting religion and by practising its precepts. 



SERMON X. 



THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 



Text — Exodus xx, 14 : " Thou shall not commit Adultery" 

It is the duty of the preacher to declare the whole counsel of God, though 
in that counsel there may be some things, which, according to the notions 
of the too fastidious, should not be treated of boldly and openly. The 
prophet is at once the organ and guardian of true delicacy, and Christians 
need, by no means, be ashamed of its manner of teaching it. The preacher, 
before he can acquit himself of his whole duty, must often lay himself open 
to the sneer of the cynic. He must have an eye to true delicacy, although 
he maj offend its tiresome and petty counterfeits. We admit that refined, 
educated feelings are realities. There is pure coin, but what is called 
fashionable delicacy is only the outside imitation. It is not a mere adulte- 
ration, but a base counterfeit. For such we have no respect. Truth being 
dearer than all other considerations, we will speak it for the same reason 
that the Reformer did — because " it is the rod of right, and therefore can- 
not be a legitimate ground of scandal or offense." 

Adultery, the thing expressly prohibited, is what is called " A violation 
of the marriage bed," either by husband or wife. The word is often 
employed in Scripture, to signify the sin of idolatry or any uncleanliness 
which would run counter to the virtues of chastity or continence. It is 
also used, in ecclesiastical language, to express the crime of invading the 
functions of a Bishop without due and visible ordination and authority 
thereto. With adultery, in these senses, we have nothing to do at present. 
We speak of adultery proper which is here expressly prohibited, and the 
principal pollutions which are indications thereof, and which are forbidden 
in the law by implication. 

The thing itself may be committed in two ways : 1st. When the man 
or the woman separates without a just cause, and marries again. 2d. When 
either is false to the other, although continuing in the conjugal state. 

But hear the sensualist speak. It is a scriptural sentiment, " that it is 
better not to marry than to marry ? This being an apostolical precept, it 



05 



cannot conflict with the original commandment, "multiply and replenish." 
But this law cannot be obeyed without sexual commerce, and the unmar- 
ried state being better than the married, there of course cannot be any 
unlawful intercourse. There can be no such thing as fornication. We are 
warned against the state of matrimony, yet commanded " to multiply and 
replenish." If the original law gives way to the apostolical teachings, and 
if the law with respect to unlawful intercourse be in force, then the extinc- 
tion of the race is intended- — which thing belies nature. If the original law 
holds good, and if the apostolical teaching be correct, then indeed indiscrimi- 
nate intercourse is justifiable, because the race must be continued and be- 
cause it is better " not to marry than to marry." St. Paul was no stupid 
bungler. God and his Apostle are perfectly reconciled. The Apostle in 
his epistle, addresses particular men in peculiar circumstances, under which 
it would not be expedient for them to marry, yet it would be better for 
such men to " marry than to burn." To such men alone does the Apostle 
address himself. He gives them a particular rule for their peculiar case. 
He says that " marriage is honorable," i. e., it is honorable to all men, be- 
cause it is a holy institution. But in order that all the duties which the 
estate implies may be duly discharged, a man in peculiar circumstances is 
to consult expediency, since he is free to marry or not to marry. 

A man may be so circumstanced as that he could neither support a wife 
nor family as they should be ; in such a case, it would be better for him 
not to marry. In such a case the dictate of the law must supersede that 
of expediency. A man may have special duties in life to discharge, but 
which the duties of the married state would render difficult. It is not ex- 
pedient for such a man to marry, though it is lawful. What St. Paul 
means, is simply this : that it is better or more expedient for some men, in 
some circumstances, not to marry than to marry, but that it is better for all 
men, under all circumstances, to marry than to burn. The saying of the 
Apostle is only prudential, not doctrinal. 

I have no space here to lay before you the many blessings of this sacred 
institution in which the wisdom of the Supreme Ruler is seen, and in which 
His care for the well-being of man is discovered to us. We must confine 
ourselves to the crime mentioned in the commandment, and to its conse- 
quences. We are told that the man who lusteth after a woman, commits 
adultery in the sight of God. We see, then, that whatever approaches to 
the thing itself, God identifies with it. 

Fornication is then forbidden. Its condemnation is the same as that of 
adultery ; their tendency and intention are the same ; they spring from the 
self-same reservoir of evil ; they are the offspring of the same abandoned 
heart, and the deeds of the self-same cruel and gMsgusting passion. The 
same array of brutal appetites are exposed in one as in the other. Their 



96 

trade is the same, to procure seduction and the overthrow of innocence. 
Fornication carries the firebrand into the home of purity and innocence, 
and not only wrecks the happiness of its victim, but also that of her parents 
and relatives. We shall see some of the consequences of fornication when 
we are considering those of adultery. 

Incest is an adultery, therefore forbidden. This crime outrages all de- 
cency — it is the desire of nature become thoroughly morbid. God is 
astonished at it, and angels and men view it with shame. The marriage 
and intercourse of near relations have been denounced from the very crea- 
tion as being repugnant to nature herself. 

Sodomy is an adultery. Of all abominations, this is the prince. All the 
abominations of hell could not drag any human being to a lower depth of 
degradation than does this sin. The thick darkness of the bottomless pit 
should hide it from the sight of heaven ; the black waters of a poisonous 
Dead sea should cover it from the earth. The fiercest and swiftest bolts of 
heaven struck its temples into ruins, and opened one common grave for its 
perpetrators in the burning bowels of the earth. God endowed two mer- 
ciless elements with the instinct of revenge against it — fire and flood be- 
came His ministers of destruction, until there was no vestige of the cities of 
the plain left. Their doom ascended to heaven on the gloomy cloud of 
smoke, and the earth has an awful memento of it in the sullen wave of the 
Dead sea. 

Bestiality is an adultery. Let the brutallity of this sin pass ; it is not 
for human ears to hear, nor for human lips to utter. Let fiends revel in the 
imagination of it, but let man blush at its very name and flee with haste 
from its contemplation. Though the earth is now and again thereby 
polluted — though man is sometimes smitten by it as with the living sores 
of the destroying plague, yet let its name be whispered only in the dark 
places of the earth ; let the " damned goblin" be bidden hence, else nature's 
throne will be shaken into ruins, and God Himself will become utterly 
ashamed of His handiwork. 

Polygamy is an adultery. Although it was winked at in the olden time 
by God, on account of man's hardness of heart and ignorance, it is yet an 
intrenchment upon the first law with respect to marriage. It is subversive 
of the best interests of society, in exactly the same way as adultery is. It 
is fatal to purity, female virtue, morality, lawful pro-creation, affection for 
wife and children, and to all kindly feeling. It is the cause of endless 
jealousies, quarrels, recriminations, strifes and hatings. It scatters to the 
winds the ends and objects of holy matrimony, and throws the bridle loose 
upon the neck of the strongest of all human passions, thereby assailing 
society at its most vulnerable part, reducing it to confusion and anarchy. 

Whatever act of incontinence we commit, whether in thought, word, or 



97 

deed, the same is an adultery in the sight of God. All our sensual longings 
and desires, our fostering the libidinous pictures of the unchaste imagina- 
tion, the midnight sigh for salacious pleasure and gratification, the day- 
dreams of the lecherous and abandoned libertine, that sparkling eye of 
passion which is more eloquent than the unbridled tongue, the prowlings of 
the midnight wanderer about the house of the strange woman, all the 
" evil communications which corrupt good manners," all lewd words which 
are the mutterings of the voluptuous heart — many of those idle flirtations 
and captivating attentions which are too often mistaken for cultivated man- 
ners and good breeding — all the bold and inviting behavior, especially of 
females, which fashion may permit, but which impure desire dictates — 
many of those soft, delicate, but fantastical dresses which rustle for the 
carnal ear and float for the carnal eye — all the soft and studied words of 
the seducer poured into the ear of unsuspecting innocence — the polished 
riot of the festal company, where beauty and wit may kiss each other ; 
where the brow of innocence is often shorn of its glory; where the £>assions 
are pampered and the watch-dogs set soundly to sleep — where hand joins 
hand, look meets look, trembling and flashing with the electricity of an 
impure love — all the haunts of passionate pleasure where the sons and 
daughters of enjoyment cast away shame, delicacy and prudence — all the 
seductive exercises which heat the blood by arousing the passions, fever 
the brain with new and strange delights, thrill the heart with the sweet 
pangs of a bewildered pleasure — all great feasting, and deep drinking, and 
voluptuous living — all, all these are forbidden, because they are incitements 
and temptations to adultery ; because they leave virtue and chastity at the 
mercy of the heartless and unworthy conqueror ; because they are the 
precursors, companions and handmaids of this dreadful crime. They are 
adultery herself, not, indeed, as she stands exposed and naked, but as she 
sits at the gate in scented and costly drapery, telling her victims of all the 
pleasures of her house. 

The first aggravation of adultery is, that it renders man an enemy to 
God. This probably may be no startling announcement to the base seducer 
of wedded virtue. The man who will trample under his feet the flowers of 
innocence and remorselessly defile the marriage bed, may not believe the 
faithful threatenings of his God, but if the king of torments be execrated by 
God, by angels and men, for his seduction of our first parents — if no lan- 
guage can describe the vengeance that will overtake him for this crime — 
the adulterer should tremble because God threatens. 

Adultery disorganizes society sooner than any other crime, by the over- 
throw of female character. Let us view it through the female offender. 
By it, pro-creation becomes stinted and unhealthy. A weak, diseased, ille- 
gitimate and spurious offspring affects and disgusts the parent. Delicacy, 
13 



98 



tlie proudest ornament of woman, is completely dimmed ; chastity, the only 
crown of woman, is dashed rudely from her head, and she is driven upon 
the wide sea of life, a smitten and dismantled wreck. Shame is banished 
from her cheek, and from under those lips which once blossomed as the 
roses of Sharon, comes the breath of a poison a hundred fold more fatal 
than the dreaded sirocco of Syria. Everything that adorns woman, wilts 
away at the touch of this fiend. She who could a little while ago frown down 
the impertinent glance of the libertine, now courts it with greediness. She 
who but a moment ago could look her husband in the face with con- 
scious rectitude and the pride. of virtue, and upon her children without the 
agony that attends immeasurable degradation, is now lashed with a scourge 
of scorpions, an unpitied victim to irremediable reproach. What was only 
a moment ago a proud edifice of virtue and chastity, is now a Babel of 
corrupted ruins, blackened and blasted by the darkest treachery and the 
deepest guilt. Oh, how truly hath the virtue of women been compared to 
the delicate down of the butterfly's wing, which the slightest touch will 
displace, and once displaced, will never, never again return. Woman is 
the light of society ; she it is who refines it and preserves it. She is the 
same to it as that principle is to wine, which preserves its flavor. But let 
her fall, and she drags society along with her in her fearful descent. It only 
requires the prostitution of female virtue to consummate human degrada- 
tion — thoroughly and universally taint the fairest part of God's creation 
with a corruption which must end only in feeding upon itself until it die. 
It only requires the destruction of female character, to render the curse 
hanging over man still more cursed, and the dark night of his sorrows still 
darker. 

Prostitution or adultery in the male is only a little less prolific of evils 
than the same in the female. When the wife discovers her husband to be 
guilty of this crime, she becomes gloomy, fretful and resentful. She will 
grieve over her lot in silence, and curse the hour that bound her to such a 
heartless traitor. She will regret that such a man is the father of her child- 
ren, and she will begin to hate her children because they have such a father. 
She feels the delicacy of her sex wantonly outraged, and her honor, both 
as a woman and wife, brutally assailed. The man to whom she plighted 
her love and faith becomes the object of her disrespect, nay, of her hate. 
The home which should be the sweet asylum of peace, is taken possession 
of by a legion of unclean spirits. Where smiles should be, there are tears, 
frowns and vituperations. Where love should dwell, there are hate and 
revenge. She who would be dutiful, becomes an apostate to all honor and 
duty. If she will not accomplish some sweet revenge by a deed of blood, 
she will be sure to find means wherein to drown her grief by adding shame 
to shame ; driven to adultery herself, she will resort to the usual mournful 



00 



expedients by which the guilty think to blunt the sting of ignominy, until 
she will drink the very dregs of vice. If not, the least that can happen is, 
that she will make her hearth the theater of endless quarrels and recrimi- 
nations, and call up storm after storm, until the traitor finds it expedient to 
look up more congenial company. He will go down to the haunts of the 
drunkard, where he can purchase a short respite from angry contention, 
and a short forgetfulness of his own turpitude and miseiy, in the insanity 
of intoxication. He will fly to the gambling table to purchase, at the last 
expense of reputation and fortune, a short lived antidote for the bitterness 
of his soul in the wild excitement of the game. Irregular habits come on 
apace ; the passions are strengthened and rendered more imperious, as the 
calls of duty fall more faintly and confusedly on the ear of the maddened 
spirit. Idleness, the parent of countless evils, and carelessness, its faithful 
handmaid, lead him away captive, until his former self is completely 
changed into a miracle of all that is horrible in crime and fearful in cruelty. 
Having lost the esteem of his friends, he at length loses all respect for him- 
self — a feeling which no excitement can fully obliterate, the pain of which 
no intoxication can alleviate. We commenced with adultery, which is 
itself deep down in the abyss of vice, and has been swept downwards to its 
last goal by such deep plunges as can be taken by him alone who fearlessly 
struck out on his downward way by adultery. He receives the burial of 
an ass, and his name, if ever mentioned at all, is so in connection with 
deeds of darkness and shame. Would that his works could follow him to 
his obscure grave, and be buried there. He leaves behind him, as a cursed 
legacy to society, a family beggared in everything but crime — a progeny 
of lawless and uneducated vagabonds who will continue to be thorns in the 
side of society, and arrows of death to their kindred as long as they live. 
He bequeaths to a wife, if she have the great misfortune to survive him, 
the accumulated dishonors of years spent in depravity, with which herself 
may have become so infected, that she will be a stigma upon her woman- 
hood and a stain upon her sex. At all events, her portion will be a broken 
heart, and her end an unwept death — the most torturing and lingering- 
kind of murder. 

If woman would only preserve her chastity — if she could only educate 
her passions so as to subserve her own honor and the honor of society in 
hers, the male seducer w T ould be completely at fault, and his inglorious vic- 
tories could no longer crown the brows of the most beautiful of God's crea- 
tion, with the dark leaves of the cypress, nor place in her fair hand the 
tarnished sceptre of the wanton. 

Adultery involves perjury. By it the most sacred vows and solemn oaths 
are shamefully violated. Vows that have been uttered in the hearing of 
the Most High God, and sanctioned by a spiritual and mysterious religion ; 



100 

plighted at the holy altars of Jehovah, -while heaven stood listening ; wit- 
nessed by the Holy Spirit, the angels, the ministers and stewards of heav- 
en's mysteries ; registered in the imperishable records of heaven — these 
vows and solemn promises are broken and forgotten when this crime is 
accomplished. It would be supposed that the fear of equivocating with 
God would make the married offender pause, ere taking the final plunge ; 
that the remembrance of vows made while the heart was warm, the affec- 
tions undivided and the soul pure, would restrain the outgoings of unlawful 
passion in one who can well appreciate treachery to the married state. It 
would be supposed that the terrors of perjury, the threatenings of an angry 
God and the frowns of society, would make the married offender assume 
virtue, even while adultery had possession of the heart. But when neither 
the threats of God against perjury, nor the gushing recollections of a first 
love, nor the frown of the good can raise an impassable barrier against this 
crime, we cannot expect that vows or solemn promises will remain long 
unfaded in the memory, while the heart is burning and the brain is in a 
flame. Aside altogether from the indelible marks and titles of infamy 
and shame which adultery entails upon the offender — aside altogether from 
the long train of ruin and unhappiness which follows this crime — aside 
altogether from the ridiculous position in which it places husband or wife, 
children and relations, it would be reasonable to suppose that one's plighted 
faith would stand in the way of the criminal, like an enraged angel swing- 
ing a two-edged and flaming sword. Treachery and perjury are, indeed, 
fit companions to attend upon adultery. As the crime itself is the most 
productive of fearful consequences, the perjury involved is a breach of the 
most sacred promise, of the tenderest trust, and the treachery involved is a 
violation of the nicest and most delicate honor. Let him who engages in 
the seduction or in the solicitation of the married woman's chastity, not 
suppose that he is free from this perjury and treachery. Let him not seek 
the victory without first casting his eye upon his compeer — the arch-fiend. 
Come forward thou human fiend, that the curses of husband, father and 
children, which utter the judgments of heaven, earth and hell against you, 
may hurry you, as on the wings of the wind, to your doom. Stand forth 
thou systematic destroyer of social living, in the light of the sun, that soci- 
ety with one accord may hurl you into a night dark enough to hide your 
impurity and perfidy from the earth. You are the perpetrator of many 
crimes in one. You are the violator of what ought to be, even in the esti- 
mation of a demon like yourself, inviolable. You are the kindler of family 
discord, the fatal rock upon which innocence is shipwrecked, the destroyer 
of a husband's honor, a father's pride and the child's hope. "Whether your 
victim be married or unmarried, your crime is the same. You transform 
the timidity of woman into the prudery and boldness of the harlot, her 



101 

scrupulous delicacy aud modesty into the disgusting effrontery of the wanton. 
You make her commit a crime for which neither yourself nor mankind will 
ever forgive her. You leave her no room for expiation. She may weep, 
but cannot burnish away the taint you have put upon her honor. You 
will only mock her tears with an impure sympathy, and make light of her 
irremediable calamity. If your victim be unmarried, you strike parents, 
brothers and sisters with consternation — you transfix their hearts with a 
thousand daggers. You transform unsuspecting innocence to folly and 
depravity. You feast upon the poor man's only lamb, which he nursed so 
tenderly in his bosom, while you were rich enough to purchase one of your 
own. You give those who never injured you in any way, to the bitterness 
of reproach — you repay their kindness and confidence with the most with- 
ering treachery. You make men begin to suspect that there is not such a 
thing at all as female purity. Oh ! where is your pity \ where your shame ? 
Did the fiend who came reeking from hell to the paradise of earth, accom- 
plish more than you ? Behold your work in those public houses of prosti- 
tution which are inhabited with women, who were happy, innocent and 
respected, until they became your victims. Let the sight unnerve your 
unclean heart — let the scene strike terror into your inmost soul. Bemem- 
ber that each woman there had a tender mother and kind father ; that sh« 
was nursed in love, reared with care, and that she was once one of a happy 
family, until you tore her from their bosom. Ask your impure heart what 
has become of that mother and father now ? See how that family mourns 
for the exile of shame, who is living, yet dead — who is lost, yet can never 
be found. You led her away captive, and when you grew weary of her 
faded charms, you cast her into the house of death. Look at her in that 
house ; see how the fire of crime has put the fever spot upon her cheek. 
Hear the loud laugh, which bespeaks a withered and ravished heart — an 
index to extinguished hopes. It is more mournful than the wail of inward 
agony, and more startling than the cry of despair. Think not that as she 
whirls round and round in the maelstrom of shame, she can find no hour 
of sad remembrance. Think not that visions of father and mother, of 
brother and sister, of home and innocence, do not people these sad and 
torturing moments. They must come up before her like accusing spirits, 
making her weep tears which are the scorn of men — making her a victim 
to a grief which only can be understood at the throne of God. Be not de- 
ceived ; she is a woman of unwitnessed sorrow, and that sorrow is of your 
making. Her rounds of fatal pleasure blunt not the sting nor soothe the 
torturing wound, though they may cover her undying sorrow from him, in 
wdiose heart there is no room for remorse or pity. Seducer and libertine, 
witness in the prostitute the wreck of woman which you have made. Is 
there not something in it which makes even your own guilty soul recoil 



102 



back upon itself, and to tremble with prophetic misgivings ? You were 
the locust that preceded the palmer worm, and the palmer worm having 
come, leaves nothing of the decayed fruit to the canker worm, but an un- 
sightly mass of corruption. To you alone society is obliged for these estab- 
lishments of prostitution which insult the majesty of heaven and the purity 
of a Christian people. You bring the daughters of Magdalen from afar, 
to satiate the passions of the impure and incontinent. You rear fortresses 
of shame in our very midst, that our sons may be ensnared and our wives 
and daughters outraged. When you have secured female degradation, you 
have secured the male's, inasmuch as you supply the means whereby men 
may become shameless prostitutes. You have taught woman in the school 
of abomination and debauchery to hire herself out to man, and thereby 
you teach men to bid upon her. You are the nursing father, the detesta- 
ble parent of that infamy which has turned a thousand families into worse 
than putrefaction. You are a curse and a scourge to society, for you plant 
the seeds of its dissolution in its very midst. You build houses of death 
•that men and women may taste of corruption. Your work is a public 
disgrace, in that you open dens of iniquity to our sons and daughters. You 
open the path of perdition to thousands who never knew you, and who 
never injured you. Oh, what a Babel of ruins you will have to build up 
at the last day ; seduced women, public prostitution with its widely felt 
evils, will come up before you to scorch your undone soul with eternal wo. 
In that day, Phineas, the son of Eleazar, will thrust you through and 
through, because you brought a plague upon his brethren. The God of 
heaven will pay you with the price of a dog. Your voluptuous heart, 
which was the temple of passion, will then become the temple of eternal 
anguish. 

Your crime goes somewhat further. It robs the Saviour of mankind of 
the souls He redeemed with his priceless blood. It gives the rightful heri- 
tage of heaven's King to reproach and shame. It makes the offices of the 
Holy Spirit of non-effect. It despoils the Church of her children, and 
paralizes her efforts, sending her out to the wilderness to weep like Hagar 
of old. It is subversive of all salvation and all hope, for while the solemn 
fast is proclaimed — while the holy convocation is assembled — while the 
prayers of a people are poured fourth — while the priests are standing be- 
tween the porch and the altar, weeping and saying " Spare Thy people, O 
Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach," the monuments of a people's 
shame, the foundation of which you laid in the seduction of woman, bear 
witness against their weeping and prayers. They do not reach the throne 
of God. Seducer and libertine, what say you to all this \ Do not blame 
her who is your victim. She was only an instrument in your hands to 
work out these dreadful evils. In God's sight, she may yet be able to ex- 



103 



piate her guilt, though never in man ? s. She is oftener sinned against and 
oftener sinned with, than she sins. Man forgives her not for this, but God 
will. Man forgives you without even your repentance, but God, before lie 
can forgive you, must see you in sackcloth and ashes until your dying 
day. 

These, my brethren, are but a few of the consequences of fornication and 
ordinary seduction. In the following sermon, we will pursue the remaining 
consequences of adultery. . 



SERMON" XI. 



THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT.— (continued.) 



Text — Exodus xx, 14 : " TJwu shall not commit Adultery" 

In our last sermon we closed with glancing at some of the consequences 
of fornication. Of course the same, in all their fullness, may be assigned to 
adultery also. 

We proceed to notice the principal aggravations of the crime forbidden 
in the law, and premise, before doing so, that, unlike other crimes, there is 
no reason whatever for mitigation or justification. The passion that actu- 
ates the adulterer is perfectly under his control, so that we must ascribe 
the commission of this crime, not to the irresistible force of passion, but to 
the most wanton malignity — to all that can be abominable in the heart of 
man. 

Adultery destroys all the tenderest and closest relations of life. Other 
crimes are sometimes productive of good by a kind of mistake, but this one 
never. "Whenever it appears, its ravages bring about invariably the same 
specific results — the destruction of all that is good, great and happy in 
society. It sunders effectually what God has joined irrevocably and mys- 
teriously together, warring continually with the declared purposes and 
providences of Jehovah. 

When the husband detects the infidelity of the wife, he feels as if an 
impassable gulf were instantaneously struck open at his feet by the convul- 



104 



sion of a mighty earthquake. In one moment of consternation and despair, 
he beholds his companion on one side of this yawning chasm and himself 
on the other, doomed to an eternal separation. What words can picture 
the disappointment of such an one ? Where is the eloquence that can fully 
convey to us the feelings of the man whose honor is thus rudely assailed 2 
The crime at once deprives him of his wife, and it is only an accident if it 
do not deprive him of his children also. The questions will spontaneously 
come up to him, Are these little ones mine ? are they the progeny of adul- 
tery ? Suspicion after suspicion will seize upon him, until the torturing 
conviction that he is a widowed husband and a childless parent, crush him 
into the dust. The children, indeed, may be his, but who can convince 
him ? They, indeed, may be bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, but 
what cau procure to them again the affections of a ruined father ? Death's 
robbery is honorable — the sleep of the grave is sweet and peaceful — there 
is a soothing balm which sustains the soul even while death is busy with 
our dearest and nearest. Though from the bourne of death no traveler 
returns, yet the soul fastens upon the hope that the departed are not lost to 
us forever. But the death of adultery — the separation consummated by 
shame and perfidy, is the very tomb of hope — 'tis the night of despair. It 
transforms the objects of our confidence, our natural affection and solici- 
tation, into those of our contempt, shame and grief. Our wishes and 
prayers are that they should hide themselves from us in some far off deso- 
lation of the earth. Our happiness will depend upon the oblivion of for- 
getfulness, yet we cannot cease to feel, while they live, nor to remember, 
until we enter into the mystery of eternity — perhaps not even then. AVhen 
death deprives a husband of his wife, he certainly feels the wound, but 
time, the common cure, soon soothes and heals it. Her spirit of love will 
dwell in the memory. But when she falls into the jaws of adultery, then 
all is lost — the gulf is impassable. She lives or dies only to people his 
memory with the most agonizing recollections, and with the most withering 
reproach. The wound inflicted is incurable ; time will bring with it no 
oblivion, and years no assuaging antidote. The grave itself can scarcely 
shroud the shame that crushed the soul with an impenetrable gloom. That 
all. this might happen from adultery, men will admit — that it does and will 
happen, they may say is only a bare possibility. But that it has happened, 
a thousand sad and horrible examples in the history of mankind evidently 
prove, and that it will happen again is clear, from the fact that the same 
cause under the same circumstances will inevitably produce the same 
results. 

We have witnessed the grief of a father, as he stood by the new-made 
grave of his child. 'Tis a trying, mournful sight. We have heard the 
struggle of anguish sound in his bosom as the unconquerable sob would be 



105 



bursting forth. We have seen him half ashamed to allow the flood-gates 
of his sorrow to open, as if the sternness of manhood would thereby be 
dishonored. We have seen him tremble with the agitation and keenness 
of his grief, as sod after sod was placed upon the breast of his darling. We 
have seen the strong man bow low like the smitten bulrush, as he turned 
away to leave the fruit of his loins to the worai and corruption. We have 
seen him wander from room to room, seeking no consolation in the dark 
hour of bereavement but that of solitude and tears. We have seen him in 
the dead watches of the night, while the moon rode high and her holy face 
shone bright, wander to the grave of the absent one, and there lay prostrate 
and pom forth the grief of an overcharged soul. Aye, we have seen him 
there when he thought that none witnessed, but his God and the spirits of 
the dead. There was the grief of a strong man — it was at once the inscru- 
table affection and unostentatious sorrow of a father for the child. But 
what is all this grief to that stunning shock which the parent receives, when, 
in his inmost soul, a fiend whispers to him that his little ones are the off- 
spring of shame — that they are the fruits of adultery ? At one merciless 
stroke, he is deprived of all he held dear upon this earth — all, indeed, that 
a man can prize in this world of uncertainty and vicissitude. To be rob- 
bed in this manner of wife, is indeed cruel ; but to be of children, is the last 
and most fatal shaft of human wo. Those little ones who were to cheer 
his tottering steps, as he would be descending to the bourne of all flesh, 
and who were to close his eyes on all the objects of this world — who were 
to be the light of his age and the brightness of his hearth, are they, then, 
to be living monuments to his dishonor ? For whom then did he toil — for 
whom did he, year after year, brave the storms of life and endure its end- 
less toils and weariness \ On whom did he lavish love, affection, care, 
labor and money \ Whence now can he look for his ravished honor, joy 
and happiness % Who are these that he nursed, clothed and fed ? The 
answers vibrate through his crushed soul, repeating continually to him that 
they are the children of the adulterer, and that all his love, labor and hope 
are an unmitigated desolation. The cup of bliss is instantly dashed from 
his expecting lips — the sweets of life are all destroyed, and the cup of bit- 
terness is filled to overflowing. No more can he indulge in the fond and 
bland illusions of this world's hope, for the fountains of his happiness are 
dried up, and all within him and around him are clothed in the gloom of a 
winter which can only be relieved, now and again, by a transitory gleam of 
hope from the tomb. The results of adultery, in this respect, may be com- 
pared to an untimely and violent death, which turns all the fairest prospects 
and scenes of life into a desert waste, smitten by each adverse blast of des- 
pair. The ends of it to the husband and father, are blasted happiness and 
extinguished hopes ; to wife and mother, everlasting shame, bitter remorse, 
14 



106 



and ever flowing tears ; and to children, its fruits are cruelty, misfortune, 
and a kind of orphanage. 

Adultery not only does away with whatever marriage secures to the 
wedded couple, but also with the sweet relation which exists between parent 
and child. It is thoroughly subversive of all the true affections and desi- 
rable feelings which this relation implies. Not only does it quench all 
conjugal love, respect and esteem, but also filial duty, honor and obedience. 
Not only does it warm the viper of discontent and bitterness between man 
and wife, but it also substitutes hate for love in the breast of the child. It 
also quenches fraternal affection, and puts an end to the amity and social 
intercourse which should exist between relatives. For whenever adultery 
is in the ascendancy, there cannot be, in the very, nature of things, certain 
and acknowledged relationships, and when these are destroyed, the duties 
implied in them are also gone. Children of the same mother may have 
many fathers ; their brothers, sisters and relatives maybe members of many 
households ; their blood mingling with many famines who are strangers to 
them. On whom is the child of shame to confer his filial love and obedi- 
ence 3 Adultery puts him in a wilderness, where he dwells alone, with the 
perfidy of his mother resting upon him like the curse of heaven. He is 
deprived of all those objects without which the human heart becomes 
barren. To have no one to love, is more dreary than to dwell amid the 
snow-drifts of the pole. To have none to call by the affectionate name of 
father, sister or brother, is ten-fold more desolate than an habitation among 
the tombs. The orphan can recall, amid the trials of life, all the sweet 
memories of his parents, but the offspring of shame has no such recollec- 
tions to comfort him . He would rather forget that he was bom of woman, 
and would pray that his life might be blotted out in the eternal oblivion of 
annihilation. He knows none to love — he can have none to love — he will, 
therefore, have many to hate, among whom will be the mother who gave 
him her shame as an heritage. Thus does adultery burst asunder all the 
tender and social bands of society, as the waters of the melting mountains 
burst open the yielding ice on the bosom of the frozen river. 

Adultery is frequently the cause of the foulest assassinations and the 
most horrid murders. The man whose honor and happiness are destroyed 
by this dime, will, in all probability, be actuated through life with an im- 
placable revenge and hate. This may be taken as the general rule, for if 
his disposition be of a peculiar kind, he may turn out a foaming maniac or 
a drivelling idiot. This is only a probability. But if reason retain her 
throne — if the mind remain unhinged, hate will rankle in the depths of the 
heart until its flame is quenched in blood. Has .not our blood often rim 
cold at the tales of murder which stain the history of man, the most of 
which can be traced to adultery ? Have we not often shed a burning tear 



101 



of sympathy over the many tales of suffering which this crime has super- 
induced ? 

The consequences of it are not confined to the individual perpetrators. 
Its bitterness and evil are frequently felt over all society, as by a " continued 
impulse." When spurious offspring is confounded with lawful heirs, even 
the laws of nations and empires are broken. Then the fury of faction is 
aroused, sedition opens her mouth, conspiracy lights the torch in the dark- 
ness of night, and ere long the dogs of ci vil war are unchained. How many 
times has adultery deluged some nations of Europe and Asia with blood ? 
How many times has it arrayed father against son, not alone in the stormy 
council chamber, but in the shock of bloody and deadly conflict ? How 
often has it armed brother against brother, with deadly hate, on the very 
field of death ? How often has it raised the war-cry of kinsman against 
kinsman, and made them close in mortal strife ? The history of man affords 
many such dreadful examples. We may, indeed, see the last of its earthly 
terrors consummated in civil war. It has fomented treasons, plots and 
spoils, and it will do so again. It lighted the faggot, erected the gibbet, 
and put the gleaming axe into the nervous hand of the headsman. It 
opened the prison doors to the wildest passions of men, until every enormity, 
every crime and outrage characterized him as an abandoned savage. It 
brought utter desolation upon whole families, societies and nations, ruined 
princely fortunes, and made the fields grow wild with the weed of the 
wilderness. It filled whole cities with mourning widows and starving- 
orphans. It reared, upon the ruins of religion, a throne for the goddess of 
anarchy, and ruined all economy, industry and commerce. It overturned 
governments, and buried in the ruins of society, all gentleness, placability 
and charity. It subverted all morality, scoffed at the regular habits, pro- 
prieties and tranquillity of life ; and it so degraded man that he became a 
disgrace to his kind and a disgust to his Creator. If circumstances should 
so combine as to favor all this, adultery would inevitably do the same 
again, even at this day. The providence of God may prevent such things 
happening again ; but if adultery should have its way, all these evils would 
most certainly overtake us. Are not the ruinous lawsuits, the fearful quar- 
rels, the bitter malignity, the ravaging hates which it fosters, even at this 
day among ourselves, earnests of what it has, and probably will accomplish 
hereafter, viz. : the subversion of the laws of God, of nature and society ? 

We see enough of its immediate results to strike us with terror, on account 
of its ultimate effects. We see the parents of the guilty covered with igno- 
miny, and their hearts pierced with a thousand daggers. We see her 
kindred covered with disgrace, until they sink into the grave. We see 
innocent children smitten with the curse of God, in foul and fatal diseases, 
of which this crime is the mother. We see it the nurse and fosterer of 



108 



premature age, of incurable sicknesses and disgusting infirmities. We see 
it not only rob the soul of its glorious hopes, but of many of its mysterious 
faculties and priceless capacities. We see it emasculating the mind and 
withering the body. We see wisdom departing as if ashamed at its touch ; 
patriotism, magnanimity, generosity, propriety and prudence die away 
under the heat of its lust, like fresh foliage beneath the fiery beams of a 
vertical sun. We see it making of man a hideous monster, of whom the 
species becomes ashamed — a strange abortion which no maker will ac- 
knowledge, but some outraged law of nature, which no father can honorably 
claim nor no mother lovingly nurse. We see it cover the earth with all 
crime — -the great fountain of shame and the exhaustless source of sorrow, 
And we see it, in the highest sense of the word, the worst enemy to man, 
because it ruins him here and plunges him into hell hereafter. These are 
but a very few of the aggravations of this dreadful crime. We might fol- 
low up one after the other, until this volume would be redoubled, but we 
will stop here, hoping that the general remarks already made shall prove 
sufficient. 

Although the natural consequences of the crime itself would seem a 
sufficient punishment to the offender, yet in some ages of the world, among 
some nations, it was visited with the most severe of human penalties. Of 
old, while the Jews' were under a theocracy, which is the purest of all gov- 
ernments, adultery was punished with death, being a crime viewed as 
destructive to society and as a frightful sin against God. Among the 
Egyptians, the male offender received a thousand lashes and the woman 
lost her nose. The Romans punished it in various ways ; sometimes ban- 
ishment was the penalty, and at others, cutting off the ears and the nose — 
at other times, with scourging, burning and beheading, etc. The Greeks 
put out the eyes of the guilty pair. Spain and Poland adopted the Eoman 
law. The Saxons burnt the adulteress, and erected a gallows over her ashes 
and hanged the adulterer. England once punished it with death ; some- 
times the man was banished, and the woman lost her nose and ears. In 
this age, it is viewed generally, in all Christian countries, only as a spiritual 
offense. (See Paley's Mor. and Pol. Phil., Vol. I.) All these punishments 
are but the mere expressions of the abhorrence in which God taught men 
to hold this great crime. Man, in society, had certainly to visit it with 
extreme severity, in order that the very essentials to society might not be 
destroyed. These punishments were defensive measures, taken against this 
arch defiler and destroyer of the human race. They were but types of that 
awful punishment which it will receive at the consummation of all earthly 
things. When God governed the Jews, He commanded them to put the 
adulterer to death. We find Him also, in the memorable case of David, 
visiting it with terrible temporal punishments. All this goes to show that 



109 



the unclean, the fornicator and the adulterer, will not escape the immedi- 
ate wages of his crime even in this world, and that in the next it will be 
repaid with perdition. Is eternal wo an expiation for this thick and dark 
complication of many crimes in one ? God is the best judge. Can an 
eternity of weeping and anguish be too great a punishment for that crime, 
one act of which may have dragged down many souls to eternal death 1 
One act of which may have spread misery and shame over whole provinces, 
deluged a nation in the blood of countrymen slain by countrymen, made 
orphans and widows without number, ruined parents and families, destroyed 
the blessings of peaceful society, strewed many death-beds with poisoned 
thorns, brought reproach upon religion and the providence of God, exposed 
innocence and happiness to nameless perils and dangers, and, mayhap, have 
eternally ruined many a soul for whom the blood of God's Son was shed ; 
what, I ask, can expiate such a crime as this? Go to the foot of Mount 
Sinai, and there take counsel of the justice of Him who thundered out the 
law. Leave all vain palliation behind, and ask Him who dwells in that 
impenetrable cloud, what offering can be made for such a sin ? Mark well 
the answer that rises high above that terrible storm, and if you are an 
adulterer, the sound thereof will strike you dead. Will you come before 
the Lord, and bow yourself before the Most High God ? will He not be 
satisfied with many burnt offerings with calves of a year old ? No, no ; 
the cattle upon ten thousand hills, offered upon altars of gold, cannot wash 
away its blasting taint. Will the Lord be pleased with a thousand rams 
or with ten thousand rivers of oil ? No, no ; He will have no burnt offer- 
ings, neither can all the oil and spices of the balmy East, arrest His arm in 
dragging the culprit to despair. Will you give your first born for this 
transgression, the fruit of your body for the sin of your soul ? No, no ; you 
may blow up the furnace in the valley, and immolate victim and victim — 
you may take your first bom from its mother's breast — you may, one by 
one, sacrifice your little ones until you are childless, and last of all, you 
may throw yourself on the smouldering pile of the sacrificed, until the 
smoke of your body be borne on the wings of the wind to the very throne 
of God, yet God will not see you innocent, nor will He pronounce you 
pure. Shall you then call a holy fast, and convoke the solemn assembly ? 
shall you brin^ the ministers and priests of the Most High God between 
the porch and the altar to weep for forty days, and by their tears to depre- 
cate the anger of heaven ? Shall you make the assembled nation cry out, 
" Spare thy people, and give not, O Lord, thine heritage to reproach V 1 
No, no ; your crime would cut short the prayers of an assembled nation, 
and turn the tears of a whole people into a vain expectation. Jehovah 
would not be appeased. What, then, will arrest God's anger from you ? 
What sheathe the flaming sword of justice ? What withhold the right arm 



110 

of the Almighty ? Wake lip thou solemn echoes of eternity— ye white 
robed messengers of heaven's deep mysteries — come and say how the adul- 
terers shame may be washed away. Come, Oh come, ye bright angels, 
from your high abodes, and tell us how the perfidious guilt of the fallen 
one can be blotted out from the records of heaven ? Men and angels give 
ear ; ye cedars on the heights of Lebanon, bow low your heads ; ye tribes 
that travel up. the holy mount of God, stand still that ye may hear! 
Naught but the blood of Jesus, the only begotten of God, can hide the 
adulterer' from the vengeance of heaven. Naught but the shade of the 
44 Rock of Ages" can soften and temper the fiery beams of Jehovah's wrath 
against this unclean offender. The spirit of the Ancient of days Itself 
must plead with unutterable groanings. He who sits on the right hand of 
all power, high above all principalities and dominions, must come down 
and make humble intercession, ere adultery can be forgiven. The offender 
himself must run in haste to the house of the Pharisee, heedless of all the 
scorn and reproaches of his fellow creatures, and there publicly wash, with 
his fast flowing tears, the feet of Him who bled for sin, and dry them with 
the hair of his head. He must mourn night and day for his transgressions, 
with, a grief wilder and deeper than the lamentations of Rachel. He must 
move the very stones with his sorrow. He must have recourse during life 
to sackcloth and ashes, and his spirit must experience all the inscrutable 
convulsions of fear and sorrow, which made David of old to go heavily all 
the day long, as if he mourned for his mother. Tears must be his meat 
day and night, and he must thirst for forgiveness as the hart desireth the 
water brooks. His soul must be vexed within him, and his spirit must be 
disquieted. He must take hold of the horns of the altar as one that has no 
hope, but in the boundless mercy of God, who may be angry yet is plen- 
teous in forgiveness. Then, indeed, a voice of peace will reach him, and the 
terrific thunders of Sinai shall be stilled. A blessed calm will shed itself 
over the soul, until fear give way to love, and sorrow to joy. 

Before proceeding further, we must say a few words as to the positive 
duties implied in this commandment. They are generally — sobc?iiess, tem- 
perance and chastity of body. In order to cultivate these, we are to eschew 
all temptations, incitements and tendencies to this crime. We must, in the 
words of our Lord, " watch and pray," and not only so, but " pray and 
watch," that our passions may be subdued, and all our thoughts and imagi- 
nations chastened down. We ought, if need be, to practice " bodily aus- 
terities," fastings and watchings, like the saints of old, that all our desires 
may be properly brought into subjection, and be mollified and purified. 
We ought to have not only our hands, but also our minds continually em- 
ployed and our time fully engaged, that idleness and ease, the great parents 
of adultery, may be none of ours. These are two great evils which attend 



Ill 



upon the rieh, for which they are much to be pitied. They are two of the 
curses which follow riches, more to be dreaded and to be more closely 
watched, than the midnight thief or assassin. A heart unemployed with 
proper subjects of meditation — without the necessary cares of ordinary life 
— will soon get filled with the imaginations of an unclean spirit. Hands 
which can find no labor to perform, will discover some mischief to do, in 
order that the monotony of an idle life may be broken in upon and relieved. 
A soul which eats and takes its ease, almost inevitably will, sooner or later, 
become engaged and absorbed in the service of the evil one, and fall a prey 
to his wiles. Idleness and ease are but the removing of the walls which 
enclose the vineyard. The luxurious fruit within attracts the wild inhabi- 
tant of the forest to coine and eat — he does come, and then the fruit and 
foliage alike are trampled in the mire. There is no necessity to the rich to 
labor that they and their families may eat bread ; the kindness of the Giver 
of every good and perfect gift, for some wise but mysterious purpose, relieves 
them from the curse — "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread" 
This is at once a great blessing and a great temptation. It superinduces 
(if permitted to do so), a desire to find employment, in seeking out new 
and sinful pleasures, which, at first, gratify the pampered passions, and at 
the last, oversatiate and pall upon them. This is an abuse of the gift of 
God. Instead of employing this blessing to their own good, and to the 
melioration of their kind, the idleness and ease to which riches secure them, 
are the rocks upon which these favored ones of the world themselves are 
too frequently wrecked, and towards which they drag their inferiors in 
worldly position and prosperity, by the irresistible force of example. The 
passion which seeks adultery, being strong, sweet and alluring, will, with- 
out fail, take advantage of ease and idleness, and of many other things 
which the rich can only enjoy. Let the rich and poor, therefore, be well 
guarded against all the incitements and temptations thereof, by watching 
over all their inordinate desires, and by bringing all their sinful passions 
under the control of a religious mind and a right reason. 

Now, brethren, although you may think that you have sufficient reason 
already to charge me with puritannic notions — though 3^011 may, with the 
sons and daughters of pleasure, join in charging me with ranting, yet I 
will not cease to seek the ability to speak the truth in candor and without 
shame. You need not tell me that my eye is jaundiced, and that my heart 
is prejudiced. Truth falls not beneath such harmless strokes. You believe, 
I believe, that God speaks to all men through their senses. This is an 
irrefragable truth. What then ? I will not forego the privilege of making- 
such use of my senses as God may permit me. You cannot help doing 
the same. An ass .believed his sight, notwithstanding the mad appeals of 
a wicked and enraged prophet, or the inconsiderate blows of his staff. Let 



112 



lis take a lesson from this humble animal, and take shame to ourselves 
without it. If we will follow its unerring example in this particular, we 
also will believe what we see, in the face of all contradiction, and in the 
very teeth of popular sentiment. 

"What, theu, do we see ? Do we ask you this question because it is 
doubtful that you do see ? No. We will not insult you with ridicule. 
Do we make it, then, that we may have an opportunity to vituperate and 
to utter spleen ? No, indeed — truth is more potent than either. Why, 
then, do we ask it ? Simply to direct your attention to things against 
which many of us, in the very excess of Christian charity, may have 
kindly closed our eyes. Let such Christian charity cease from amongst 
us — its forbearance neutralizes the woes of the Lord God, most mighty. 
We will anticipate your questions, and at the same time be the catechu- 
men. Do we not see the adulterous harlot clothed in soft and pleasing 
attire ? Does she keep hid away in the seclusion of the voluptuous couch 3 
or are her words whispered within her deadly chamber ? No, no ; we see 
her boldly in the front of the throng at the gate, and true to her ancient 
character, the feet of this strange woman abide not in her house. We hear 
her voice gathering her victims, a numerous multitude, as the "sylvan 
horn" calls the scattered huntsmen to the scene of death. Behold and say 
what are these ruinous, fantastic and costly dresses, which are odoriferous 
of aloes, myrrh and cinnamon ? A puritan would merely pronounce them 
foolish ; but a man of closer observation would say that they are the trim- 
mings which adorn wanton loveliness. What mean all these fatiguing and 
endless artifices to deck the person and force beauty — all these silly sub- 
terfuges to cover some fancied deformity, or to hide the untimely wrinkles 
and discolorings brought on by drinking deep in the fatal cup of pleasure ? 
Are they not the dissimulations of the strange woman ! Why are these 
open revelries so frequent, where wanton mirth, and polished debauchery, 
and fashionable dissipation disgust religion and wisdom ? Why these giddy 
dancings, and these voluptuous and swelling strains of the enrapturing 
song ? Why are these parties of pleasure so numerous, and why are they 
suffered, not alone to interfere with our domestic duties, but also, alas, to 
supersede entirely those we owe to the God of high heaven ? Is it not be- 
cause we have amongst us those who love the offerings of the subtle woman, 
and who find pleasure in receiving the solaces of her love ? What is this 
impatience of restraint, this forgetfulness of home and inattention to honest 
labor ? What is all this false delicacy, this fastidiousness and taking of 
ease ? Are they not the teachings of her whose house is filled with the 
dead ? What are these idle flirtations, gay contentions, delicate but empty 
and artificial attentions ? Are they not the artifices of her who tells her 
victims that the good man is not at home 1 What are all these excesses 



113 



and extravagancies which have ceased to astonish us ? what are all these 
useless and expensive elegancies, got up for empty parade and display ! 
May they not be compared to the tapestry of the harlot's chamber, and to 
the perfume which intoxicates her victims ? "Who hath uttered the dread- 
ful words, "that prostitutes of both sexes have become the nursing fathers 
and mothers of our State ?" Horrible picture ! Who hath made the 
crushing calculation, that the money spent in procuring divorces, and 
gained as damages in cases of adultery and seduction, would support a 
numerous ministry and house the poor of the State ? I seek neither to 
prove nor to dwell upon this. We will rather point you to the records of 
shame — the public prints— which are filled with the separations of married 
men and married women ; which are filled with the murders and assigna- 
tions superinduced by adultery. We may excuse or moralize these divorces 
as best we may — we may cover or forget the perfidy and shame which they 
would disclose to us, yet they stand up in judgment against us as a people, 
and never, never can God look upon us in pleasure as long as such a state 
of things exists. I care not, should I be alone in m}^ opinion, that if there 
be a God in heaven, if He be that God who is revealed to us, such things 
cannot go unpunished. 

Let us, my brethren, one and all, look again, in deep shame and humili- 
ation, at the numerous houses of prostitution, not alone in our cities, but 
in our towns and even villages. Are these nothing? or do they not exist? 
Aye, they do exist as monuments to our disgrace. Fortunes have been 
acquired by them. Does this tell nothing ? In our cities, splendid proper- 
ties are owned — by whom ? By prostitutes. Great God ! and this is a 
Christian couutry ! Drag the adulterous woman into the midst, and let 
him who is innocent in the vast concourse, cast the first stone at her. 
Where did these fortunes come from ? whence did these splendid posses- 
sions come ? Let the curtain drop ; the answer is given and the multitude 
has gone away condemned. But I see in this crowd, as they go along, not 
only single men, not only young men, not only poor men, but I also see 
married men. Yonder, too, goes lustful age, and there goes a great com- 
pany of the lords of creation — all liberal patrons of this vice ! ! 

I have a few words to say to the ladies of California. To those wretched 
females who have prostituted their persons, our words cannot come, because 
they will not listen. We would, however, say something to those ladies 
who pervert their influence and example. Perhaps there is no country in 
the world where woman is more potent for good or evil, than in Califor- 
nia. Her influence is universally acknowledged here by the opposite sex. 
What, then, has she to account for ? Has her influence turned the beam 
against God or against the world ? The prostitution of the person, 
in the sight of God, is not a much greater sin than the prostitution of influ- 
15 



M4 



ence, especially wlien that influence might redound largely to His glory. 
We take it not upon ourselves to judge you. Yet there is One that is 
able — One that will judge you in the latter days. You know well that the 
gallantry of American gentlemen has raised you to a position in which you 
can do much good or evil, as you may choose. You know well also that 
the Christian religion hath smitten asunder the chains that bound your sex 
to slavery and degradation. To this religion, you most certainly owe all 
that you are. What then ? Do you abuse the influence which the other 
sex sutlers you to wield ? What return do you make that religion which 
has made you the brightest ornaments, and the most powerful conservators 
of society 2 Has the Church no complaints to make of your neglect of her ? 
Can it be said now that woman, who was the last at the cross and the first 
at the grave, has at length learned to weave the scarlet robe and cut the 
mocking reed for Him who wept with and bled for her 2 It is, alas, too 
true ; your influence can almost be secured for anything, but for the cause 
of Him who was an affectionate and loving companion to your sisters of 
old. You will be seen in the house of pleasure ; you will go to each silly 
amusement ; you can find time and means to spend upon vanities and tri- 
fles light as air. But when the ministers of God look, to you to strengthen 
their hands, you meet their demands with idle excuses and frivolous argu- 
ments. You have no time or means to spend for God, because you have 
not the will. Wherever woman goes, there man will go also. Whatever 
woman does, that will man do also. May we not with justice, then, attri- 
bute to this reason the slim attendance at Church, and the crowd in the 
theater 3 May we not, at least to some extent, attribute to the sinful levity 
of woman, the outrageous irreligion of man ? May we not, in some degree, 
see the reason of our lamentable state of society, in the censurable example 
and misdirected influence of woman ? In a country and age such as this, 
when we see religion despised, morality depraved, Churches empty and 
Sundays desecrated, the more thinking of us will look and consider how 
woman gives her example — how she wields her influence. And if she 
prostitute these, then indeed there is no difficulty in assigning the' legiti- 
mate cause for many grievous evils which afflict society. Probably the 
excitement which surrounds you from day to day, deprives you of the time 
to consider these things well. Take care ; the days are fast coming wherein 
you will have to confess that you yourselves, added to and sustained this 
excitement, by an indulgence in each frantic pleasure-— by adding round 
to round of irrational and expensive enjoyment. Your hearts, ladies, are 
kind, if they could only be reached. Your nature is still that of woman ; 
let me, therefore, beg of you to reflect, and that, too, seriously, for the 
Saviour is now calling for the aid of your influence to heal the heart of His 
people. Look upon the many wrecks around you, and ask if it be not 



115 



reasonable to expect your powerful example and influence ? There are 
many men and women, whose hearts are pierced with incurable sorrows, 
and whose hopes are extinguished forever by female infidelity to the mar- 
riage vow. We see the closest and most sacred connections invaded, de- 
filed and violated, and the most filthy and criminal amours kindling the 
flames of discord in peaceful families. "We see children prematurely vicious, 
not merely by lax and careless training, but also by nameless precept and 
example. We know that domestics hold the precious reputation of mistress 
and master on their tongues, and extort a heavy tax as the price of silence. 
We behold the ruined of adultery repair to the deep debauch, to become 
more impure and tainted still. We see the fresh blossoms of young virtue 
and unexperienced chastity, which were nursed by parental care, and fos- 
tered by the most scrupulous solicitude, fall away from the slender stem, 
scorched by the frosts of early crime and shame. We behold boldness, 
folly and depravity sitting where modesty, delicacy and timidity should 
reign. We may hear, now and again, a mourner sighing and weeping 
over fallen virtue ; over the loss of the delicate down, which the hand of the 
spoiler brushed from the soul, but this is like the comfort poor Job experi- 
enced in the heat of his affliction. 

To you, then, ladies of California, we look for a melioration of things. 
We would have you regard the ties of matrimony as sacred and inviolable. 
We would rather have you view this holy institution as a sacrament, than 
as a mere civil contract. Do not for your husband's sake, for your own 
sake, for the sake of your children, your sex and society, cultivate any lax 
or easy opinions of it. It is woman's only hope in life, and man's only 
assurance of happiness. What is woman without it, i. e., what is she 
without virtue ? or what is man without it ? What on earth makes woman 
lovely or valuable but virtue ? and what on earth can preserve her virtue 
but the holy estate of matrimony ? Let us all, then, beware of violating 
its obligations, lest we commit adultery, for there is no night dark enough 
to hide its shame, and no grave deep enough wherein to lodge its accumu- 
lated guilt. Especially let woman look well to her virtue, for an ocean of 
tears can never win back to the virgin or to the wife, her shipwrecked 
chastity. But hell can scarcely punish the deliberate and professional 
seducer of female virtue. 



SERMON XII. 



THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 



Text— Exodus xx, 15 : " Thou skalt not steal." 

Here, iny brethren, we have a law against all kinds of dishonesty. All 
the numberless tricks of the dishonest man may be resolved into the crime 
here prohibited, whether they be the secret taking away or purloining 
of our neighbor's property, without his knowledge or consent ; or whether 
they be the unlawful " getting or detaining " of anything, whereby our 
neighbor would be wronged, and which of right belongs to him. Direct 
theft is that kind of dishonesty which the professed thief or desperado 
practices. Indirect theft includes all that round of strange and Covert dis- 
honesties, by which men become hastily rich, and which subjects every man 
to injustice and wrong. 

Human laws are enacted, against what may be called ordinary robbery 
and theft, so that the fear of immediate punishment deters men, more or 
less, from being guilty of it. But against many dishonesties, which are 
indeed true and proper thefts, there are no laws, save that of God, which 
carry with them, to the generality of mankind, little or no fear, and little 
or no respect. Against the depredations of the open thief or robber, society 
has pretty well secured itself. But against the endless and ingenious frauds 
of the honest robber, so to speak, there is no safeguard but knowing and 
defensive experience, or counter craft and overreaching ingenuity. Men 
have a thousand ways of eluding all human law against dishonesty. The 
chicanery of him who makes haste to be rich, outwits all the foresight of 
the wisest and most provident of human legislators. The endless details of 
man's dishonesty and trickery, can only be embraced in that law which 
bids us put on bowels of mercy ; that sublime law which is the concentrated 
essence of all moral duty and obligation between man and man ; that law 
which makes it a matter of conscience to do unto our neighbor as we would 
have him do unto us. 

In the process of buying and selling, the most flagrant and effectual dis- 
honesties are committed with the utmost impunity. In the strange intri- 



117 

cacies of business ; on the broad sea of commerce ; in the conduct of all 
the ordinary traffic and affairs of life, there runs a vein of the most heart- 
less and finished roguery. This is tolerated, as being the usages of trading 
life ; yet it is unmitigated theft in the sight of God. We see it apparently 
in some degree necessary, or at least expedient for him who embarks in 
business, to provide himself with a share of that cunning which can meet 
cunning ; that vigilance and sharpness which will secure him against the 
wiles and the assaults of the professional sharper. Men may, indeed, think 
it necessary to become skilled in these matters, and that it is fair to meet 
dishonesty by dishonesty— to pay theft with theft, swindling with swindling, 
injury with injury, and oppression with oppression. Yet the excuse upon 
which such conduct is grounded is unjust and insufficient ; and the neces- 
sity and expediency are, at the least, only apparent. We hold that there 
may be an excuse involved in the circumstances, which may overtake the 
poor, necessitous thief — for the scorned and rejected vampire. But we hold 
that there can be no sufficient excuse whatever in the case of him, who, 
from his mere haste to become rich, preys upon society by a course of un- 
derhand dishonesties, and by a daily round of base and mean trickeries. 
Necessity, in the former case, may excuse — but since avarice is the actuating 
principle in the latter case, the man so acting is guilty of theft before God, 
however much it may be overlooked by us. 

We cannot enter into the infinite details of the dishonesties -perpetrated 
in trade, or in any other phase of life — we can only generalize. 

A fraudulent purchase is a theft. Whoever buys anything at a price 
which he knows perfectly well is a dishonest one, is brother to the thief ; 
some say a cowardly thief. A dishonest purchase is a presumption, would 
we say a proof ? that the man guilty of it, would steal, should a safe oppor- 
tunity offer itself. To take advantage either of ignorance or inexperience, 
or of distressing circumstances } in a business transaction, is not very un- 
like the thief, taking advantage of the sleep or absence of him, whose 
property he steals. It is not merely an abandonment of all charity, but 
also a plain and open infringement of that precept, which requires us to 
provide all things honestly in the sight of God and man. It deprives the 
seller fraudulently, of what is rightfully his due, and filches his property 
from him as effectually and dishonestly as an open theft or robbery would. 
It betrays a coldness and heartlessness little short, if any, of that which 
characterizes the professional swindler. It discloses the calculating selfish- 
ness of villainy, and the griping avarice of the wrinkled and dastardly 
miser. 

A dishonest sale is a theft in the sight of God. It is not only a very 
high breach of the confidence placed in the seller's truth and honesty, but 
it is, beyond all dispute, a deliberate robbery of the purchaser's money or 



118 



property. What, pray, is the difference between hiui who employs deceit 
and lies to acquire riches, and him who uses arms to extort money from you 
on the highway 'I Only in the means employed. This difference makes 
us view the one a cowardly thief, and the other a reckless desperado. The 
only redeeming trait in the robbery committed by the fraudulent .seller is, 
that it suffers its victim to go for a time, in blessed ignorance of the 
injury done him. The only aggravation in the crime of the footpad is, that 
when it is committed, the nerves of his victim are somewhat shocked, and 
his courage somewhat taxed. About the one there is all the dryness of mat- 
ter of fact, or business ; about the other there is a dream of romance, 
which is quite a consideration. A burglar gags his victim to prevent alarm 
— it is a necessaiy operation. The cheating seller, by willful lying and 
loud protestations, lulls all the alarm of suspicion, and throws dust into the 
eyes of his victim — this is also a necessary operation, only a little more 
pleasant than the other. The highwayman comes to the point at once ; 
dispatch is in his eye ; and the moment he fingers the coin he disappears. 
But the oily tongued seller, with a voice trembling with the strong emotions 
of a dogged honesty — the immaculate man, who appeals to his unim- 
peached truth and honor, robs his friend in a kind, pleasant manner, which 
to be sure, is a great comfort to all concerned. It is a mistake to think 
that the necessitous thief has no notions of honor. He will not, as a gen- 
eral thing, fasten upon the poor, because their blood is too thin for him s It 
is the direst necessity that will drive him to such an extremity. But the 
seeker after what are called bargains, i. e., profitable purchases, makes his 
way to the abodes of distress and embarassment, not with charity in his 
right hand, but to turn misfortune to his own account. Among the igno- 
rant and distressed, he can often strike the best bargains. Whatever comes 
into his wide spread net is to him fish. From the gorgeous spendthrift, 
down to the destitute widow and starving orphan will be kindly accommo- 
dated. Nothing is too lofty for him — nothing too mean. Anything from 
a splendid estate to a rotten crib, if it only can be made a good bargain. 
Any lad)' — every' lady, great and small, easy or distressed, sharp or simple, 
good or bad, are all legitimate game — the only question is, can they be vic- 
timized ? A man, with such a capacious maw is certainly a leviathan thief. 

The fraudulent seller bears an analogous character to the dishonest 
buyer. He is a smiling, bowing, polite and mannerly sort of thief. Lies 
are also his trade, imposition his study, and swindling eloquence engages 
him continually. He will not afford himself the time to distinguish between 
those to whom he ought to behave mercifully, or to whom unmercifully. 
He ought certainly to deal fairly with all ; but if a man is determined to 
become a villain, he ought to make distinctions among his victims. No 
matter how poor a man may be, the dishonest seller will cheat him even in 



119 



his property.; no matter how distressed, he will add, as far as he can, to his 
difficulty ; no matter how rich, he would fleece him with an overflowing 
kindness, and make him as poor as Lazarus. Yet you must remember, that 
all this time he imagines himself doing quite a legitimate business, and 
after a day's labor in this arrant knavery, he would not scruple one mo- 
ment to send a vulgar thief to the penitentiary. 

I hope, my brethren, you do not understand me as speaking of those 
gentlemen who engage in the lawful and necessary traffics of life. Their 
callings are honest and honorable ; and they are as much entitled to the 
profits and other emoluments, which accrue from such, as the daily laborer 
is entitled to his daily hire. The men who engage in the various branches 
of lawful traffic, often become honestly rich. They engage in such with 
honest and honorable intentions — they risk their money, they spend their 
time, they labor faithfully at once for their own good, and for the good of 
their fellow men ; therefore, neither God nor man will deny them the fruits 
of their labor. If fortunate, they are deservedly so— if otherwise, they 
must have become the victims to either of the rogues we have endeavored 
to describe, or to some others we are about to consider. 

Taking advantage of a puffed and fictitious credit, and borrowing money 
upon the strength of it, is another resort of the dishonest man. A penni- 
less fellow, with some wit and tact, occupying a certain position in life, is 
seldom without a circle of unprincipled, though influential friends. With 
designs, which are best known to themselves, they will touch up their 
friend's credit with rather a florid brush. On the strength of this, large 
loans are easily procured, and heavy debts are easily contracted ; but these* 
the man of fictitious credit and his coadjutors never dream of making 
good, or liquidating. Men of all ages, shades and colors get, somehow or 
other, involved in the affair — families, and even the entire community may 
get interested in the bubble. . But when the proper time comes, this bub- 
ble which rode lightly and beautifully on the tide of human affairs, sud- 
denly bursts and disappears. All the dupes discover themselves to be the 
victims of a grand swindle, and they are left to submit with the best grace 
they can assume. The gentleman robber then retires into the shades of 
fashionable life with his booty ; and the very community ivhich he plun- 
dered nearly kills him with its smiles and congratulations. He is pro- 
nounced to be what common people call a " smart fellow," i. c\, a man who 
cuts his way to fortune through all the laws of God, without once offend- 
ing any law of man. This is indeed smart in the eye of the world ; but 
when God will come to deal with it, it will inevitably turn out a bitter 
foolishness. 

To many it is a perplexity, why the petty thief is paraded in the chain 
gang, while the splendid depredator is fawned upon and flattered. The 



120 



reason is probably because a " small affair " savors too much of the ple- 
beian, and because a tremendous sweep is deemed really aristocratic. How 
faithfully does the world sustain its character ! Poverty with vice, and 
poverty with virtue receive the same treatment ; and on the other hand, 
riches with vice, and riches with virtue receive the selfsame warm homage. 
It will actually, as the dog, lick the hand that smites it, if that hand only 
glitter with gold. What, it may be asked, what great good does it do 
society to adorn the poor and friendless thief with a chain ? Think you 
that it is an effectual check to evil doers ? Human law asks him not what 
misfortune or what necessity drove to the commission of theft ; but it adds 
to his misfortune deep disgrace. This is what poverty and misfortnne must- 
expect from the cruel world. A poor man steals, not to become rich, but 
to meet the pressing demands of a present and pinching necessity. The 
world, that should have relieved this necessity, recoils upon its child, and 
fastens upon it the badge of shame. But what is the treatment of the fash- 
ionable and aristocratic thief? how does it punish him, who robbed to be- 
come rich ? to wallow in the frantic pleasures of luxury and affluence ? 
The world is dazzled by his well feathered nest — it looks up wistfully to the 
rock upon which he built it, and it begs him to descend from his high 
perch to receive its warm congratulations. He is received with open arms 
— he becomes the subject of many soft and sympathizing tongues ; and he 
is fondled by round after round of flatteries, as if he were returning from a 
field of victory, with captives bound to his chariot wheels. To say the least 
of it, the " aristocratic deed " gains for him a proud and promising po- 
sition. It is little short of an absurdity to preach to the world that " money 
is the root of all evil." It wont believe it. To the world there is no evil 
whatever, but the want of money. The man who possesses it, should be 
the very personification of turpitude, yet there is none so great or good as 
he in the world's eye ; he is faultless if he only possess the God — money. 
" He who steals my purse, steals trash " is about one of the most nonsensi- 
cal sentiments ever uttered, if there be any philosophy or truth in the usages 
of this age; for according to the notions of men now-a-days, all else is 
trash but the " purse." Now " good name " is trash, morality is trash, 
honesty is trash, virtue is trash, religion itself is trash, everything is trash 
but money, because it is the only key to the floodgates of pleasure, honor, 
fame and luxury. It even opens the heart of woman, and makes her love 
whom she ought to despise. It makes a rogue an honest man, and an 
honest man a rogue. It raises shame to honor, and changes the rags of 
humility to the robes of state. It hides every deformity, and cures every 
disease. It makes wise men fools, and fools wise. It makes the illiterate 
most skilled in letters, and turns dunces into sage philosophers. It changes 
the blood of the plebeian, and makes it run a rich, a pure patrician stream. 



It raises the weak to power, and drags the powerful into weakness. It 
makes the abject an object of wonder and delight, while it makes abjects 
of the great and good. It makes crime a virtue, and virtue a crime — truth 
falsehood, and falsehood truth. Oh say, thou magic and potent god, what 
thou canst not do 1 Canst thou not storm the gates of heaven itself, and 
make your worshippers rule supreme there ? That thou canst not do — 
your magic spell is broken in the grave, and God be thankful for it. The 
world no doubt thinks you can purchase heaven. Who, then, will call 
money trash ? Come forth now, thou insulted shade of the immortal bard, 
and vindicate your sickly creed. What are God, eternity, immortality, 
soul, conscience or death, to money, to power, to influence, to office, to ease, 
to pleasure and splendor ? Perish the comparison — money is all. Let 
sages ever after this, hide their heads, for having so long deceived us ; let 
spiritual men look to their well worn sandals, and return from their upward 
journey — for money is all. Let the soul herself cease to prune her etherial 
wings — let her aspirations flag — let her cease her sublime longings — let her 
ineffable hopes be accounted as -fairy dreams, which are fated soon to be 
all dreamt out, and let her shut her eyes and ears against all her bright 
visions and high promises ; because money is at last found to be all that 
man requires — it is the elixir of life — 'tis the philosopher's stone. But 
how are the poor of the earth to be comforted ? God must take care of 
them ; and money must control the world ! ! Excuse me brethren for this 
digression-— we shall now proceed. 

There is another kind of theft practised by the nobly — the powerfully 
"sharp" — commonly called oppression. There are men who consider 
themselves the lords of creation ; who imagine that the ocean of glory is 
to be ploughed by them alone. It is indeed strange that such highflown 
sentiments should associate themselves with theft : nevertheless such is the 
case. They will not suffer auy Caesar to dispute the world with them ; it 
was certainly made for them alone. You must understand, my brethren, 
that it is not impossible to a rich and powerful man to become a thief. 
Riches gain on the affections of man — the more they are possessed, the 
more desired ; therefore, it is often the case, that the powerful rob, by op- 
pressing and extorting, that they may be the richer still. It is a very 
easy matter for a man to imagine himself poor ; once convinced of this, he 
will use all means in his power to become rich ; and if oppression be the 
only means whereby he can obtain riches, he will not long remain poor. 
There are men, rich, influential and powerful, who think that they have not 
got enough- of this world's goods, and who will extort from and press down, 
for the sake of wealth, those they may have in their power. There are 
men who will grind, grind, grind the poor, until they can grind them no 
longer, who will sell their influence to a wicked cause for filthy lucre ; pros- 
16 



122 



finite their authority and power for filthy lucre, and damn their souls by 
the possession and spending of the unrighteous spoils, robbed from the poor 
and needy — who will oppress the widow in her distress, and forsake the 
orphan in his destitution — who will remorselessly fasten upon biting neces- 
sity, and supplicating need, and by tyranny and extortion make them the 
means of unholy gain — will feast, riot, and revel, add thirst to drunkenness, 
and fatten upon the plunderings of poverty ; and then descend into hell, 
followed by the loud maledictions of the poor. There are hundreds of such 
men in the world, who thus live, almost from the cradle to the grave, on 
the spoils of extortion and oppression. This is cruel robbery— 'tis murder- 
ous theft. 

There is a theft involved in what is called "match making'' — it is a 
very peculiar kind. The rich, powerful and houorable are its victims. I 
am not certain that it can be made out a theft to your satisfaction. How- 
ever, we will try. Designing parents, I knoAv, will laugh at the idea of 
such a thing being theft. There is a daughter, then, to be disposed of, who 
has a beautiful face and an ugly mind, always busy about the utmost vani- 
ties and as useless, and thoughtless as possible. She certainly has a few 
accomplishments, which are ten-fold worse than useless, because they cul- 
tivate affectation and extravagance. Her parents must see her settled in 
life, as indeed they ought ; but the settlement must be all profit, and no 
loss to them and family. The match to be made, must be advantageous. 
The mother especially, thinks it hey province to teach the young lady to 
pawn herself off on some wealthy scion of aristocracy, who has nothing 
enviable but his fortune. The visions of levees, audiences, parties, dinners 
and balls float through the brains of the artful mother, and set her fairly to 
work. By arts and wiles, which none dare practise but an ambitious 
mother, the matrimonial noose at length is adjusted to the languid lover's 
neck, and he swings. The ambitious family in this way gets his fortune, 
and any influence he may have, merely by. giving him an apology for a 
wife. 

But there is also a son to be disposed of. And why not, since there are 
plenty of heiresses sighing for lovers i This son probably can never- be of 
any use, either to himself or any other, unless, indeed, he can be made an 
instrument of dishonesty. It is settled long before the gay Lothario's 
worthless education is finished, that none dare aspire to his hand but an 
heiress. He is most likely made to believe that nothing can resist him, 
and that he can make the ladies follow him as readily as Orpheus drew 
the rocks and waters after him with a reed. This, of course, inspires him 
with the necessary courage to undertake anything. At a moment's notice 
he is prepared to storm any citadel the parents may point him to. A vic- 
tim is fixed upon, and a tremendous artillery is opened immediately. Her 



123 

• 

parents may take the alarm, and bravely defend the widening breach, but 
the gallant soldier in this bloodless war mounts it . and victoriously leads 
away the piize, either by elopement or seduction. The conqueror then 
can dictate terms. Both families make friends — the heiress' fortune is 
secured, and everything is then as it ought to be. This sort of theft is 
practised and accomplished much oftener than we dream of in our philoso- 
phy- 

The aiding of fraud, theft or robbery in any manner whatever, is strictly 
prohibited by the law under consideration, as being no less than theft itself. 
Going shares with the swindler, is swindling — it is a communication in his 
crime. Advising or aiding any wrong, is to become guilty. Winking at 
or sustaining oppression, brings us into the same judgment witli the tyrant 
thief. The receiving, coucealing or appropriating of any or all of the pro- 
ceeds of dishonesty, is in effect to steal. To employ agents to execute 
swindles concocted and planned by ourselves, to help or urge any one to 
cheat, to procure the means and the opportunities to overreach, to become 
the servants or instrument of others to cany out wrong, to play upon the 
tears and weaknesses of the ignorant and inexperienced for the purpose of 
securing their property, to crush the poor and indigent when we are in 
power, for the purpose of wrongfully taking from them what they do not 
owe us ; all these, my brethen, resolve themselves into unqualified theft, 
and without doubt come immediately under the prohibition of the text. 

Bankruptcy may become a theft — it often does. It is the same as bor- 
rowing with no intention to restore, which is theft effected by false promises. 
'Bankruptcy is very frequently unavoidable ; of such cases we do not speak. 
We refer only to that which has no other purpose or cause but a desire 
to defraud and wrong the creditor. In the human laws with respect to 
debtor and creditor, there are so many corners, crevices, passages and side 
doors in which a debtor can at pleasure shelter himself, that bankruptcy is 
often resorted to as a speedy way to become rich. A point blank oath can 
at once wipe out altogether a man's debts, and enrich him with much spoil, 
which no creditor can ever claim. Perjury is the instrument of robbery in 
this case. Mark, then, what happens. Although the false oath wafts the 
bankrupt out of the reach of all human law, yet it rudely dashes him 
against the very midst of God's law, by the double impetus of perjury and 
robbery. It has been said that it is no very easy task " to break the whole 
of God's law, and yet adroitly miss the whole of human law which is 
founded on the divine." The thing is yet very common, and it is common 
because it is easy. 

There are certain vices, my brethren, which may be, with all justice, 
referred to theft, although we do not look upon them, as a general thing, 
to be tantamount to robbery, We know that the extravagance of individ- 



124 



uals not only robs themselves and all depending upon them, but also robs 
society. We know also that the reckless prodigality of society not only 
robs individuals, but also the State ; hence we have extravagance the cause 
of mutual spoliation or theft. All that a man spends, over and above his 
income, really belongs to some other person, in some way or other. To 
use such means without the authority or permission of those to whom they 
may rightfully belong, is something very, very much akin to stealing. 
Extravagance means nothing more than the spending, for our own gratifi- 
cation, more than what we can honestly afford or can honestly provide. 
This waste, then, to say the least of it, is a kind of theft which, although it 
may not involve a criminal intention, yet implies as much of an effectual 
wrong and injustice as does open theft. Its consequences are strictly analo- 
gous to those of robbery ; nay, they may, with all justice, be identified 
with them. Extravagance ruins utterly a man's credit and character, so 
does theft. It beggars all who may depend upon him for sustenance and 
support ; .such, indeed, happens less or more to the victim of robbery. The 
consequences of the best studied villanies cannot inflict greater injuries on 
man than do those of extravagance. Indeed, it is itself an offspring of that 
parent which claims theft — some say of the two, it is the eider daughter, 
The curious desire to be considered affluent; the fond hope to be admitted 
into what is called fashionable society, an unconquerable longing to enjoy 
the deadly luxuries of life and to taste the vices of the rich, are some of the 
features of that parent which claims extravagance as her offspring. A man 
under the strong influence of these desires, would steal, if theft could secure 
what he desires. He will become extravagant, if he should happen to 
think that spending is the surest and shortest road to his ambition. 

For example — we can see young men spend often in .one night, more 
than they can earn in a week, merely to be thought " well off" and fash- 
ionable. They will spend enormous sums of money in balls, in drink, 
jewelry, fine dress, in theaters, concerts, buggy riding, treating to drinks, 
jaunts of pleasure, expensive flirtations with ladies ; and last, though not 
least, in gratifying their grosser passions in the house of death. All this is 
done to be considered politely vicious. All this time, these very young 
men are most certainly robbing themselves, their creditors, their friends, 
and perhaps their employers. 

Again— -an extravagant woman will tax the income of her husband to 
ruin, in order that suitable articles for her numberless tastes and vagaries 
may be supplied her. Her dresses alone would beggar quite a respectable 
income ; her luxurious table will keep the husband in perpetual motion on 
the trade wheel of this fluctuating life. Her parties and attendance at balls, 
dances and festivities, with their ever recurring expenses, gorge all the 
fruits of his labor and explode all his profitable projects. Her inconside- 



125 

rate waste of money, in order to be in the very front of fashion, keeps the 
distracted husband on the run until he falls down, like a jaded hack, ex- 
hausted, and then the fatal crash comes— then the gay butterfly has to 
contemplate her handiwork, when prudence and thought, alas, are too late. 
She beholds robbery in full Wast, creditors cheated, employers wronged, 
family beggared, and may be dark crime to be atoued for. She at last 
discovers that she has not only wronged her husband, his creditors and her 
own children, but also cruelly wronged herself. The very society for whose, 
smile of approbation she ruined herself, will reject her because she cannot 
any longer maintain the particular style which they recognize as the climax 
of human felicity. They for whom she thus stole will despise her — and 
despising her, she is robbed of all her happiness. 

The extravagance of whole families is still more sweeping in its conse- 
quences. Its blows are felt round the entire circumference of a very large 
circle, and the prosperity . of many individuals, and other families, may 
thereby be very seriously curtailed. Wherever extravagance is, there . we 
see robbery ; at all events, we see it leading to many crimes which may be 
justly referred to robbery. 

Idleness is another vice which not ojily implies theft, but also invariably 
leads to it. The man who, from sheer laziness, does not provide the com- 
forts and necessaries of life for himself and family, must be on the very 
nearest road to theft. We are told that " as vinegar is to the teeth and 
smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send him." And, " he 
that is slothful in his work, is brother to him that is a great waster." Since 
not only the idler must be fed, housed and clothed, but also his wife and 
family, if he have any ; since the sluggard fails to make any provision for 
himself or them, the industrious are most certainly compelled to make the 
necessary provision. This is theft on the part of the idler. No man, under 
ordinary circumstances, has a right to eat unless he works. The drone of 
society becomes an unrighteous tax upon it, because he lives upon others 
in idleness. If lie eat, he does what he has no right to do, although food 
may be given him, and taking that which is dishonest to receive, is a kind 
of theft. It is, at least, fraudulent begging. The lazy man will borrow, 
knowing that he can never restore ; he will promise, without one single 
intention to fullfil. This is certainly swindling, or obtaining money or any- 
thing else, on false pretences. The careless and indolent will neither make 
nor keep money ; in fact, his whole life is a continual infliction of wrong 
and injury upon the provident and industrious. The idler, of all other 
men, is the fomenter of every kind of mischief, such as lying, theft, perjury, 
robbery and murder, and all the other crimes which may be referred to 
those. Thus he is always somebody's loss, somebody's robber or enemy, 
somebody's ruin. The bloodhounds of the law have arrived at this con- 



126 



elusion from time immemorial, for the bloody snout of justice scents out all 
the vermin of society, in the haunts and hiding places of sloth. From this 
class, who may be called constitutional thieves, come multitudes who cost 
the industrious many an hour's toil and many a hard earned dollar, both to 
support them in and out of prison, and to fill the mouths of their offspring 
in order to prevent riots, mobbings, robberies, murders and anarchy. They 
cannot be strictly called the thieves either of necessity or fashion, but the 
thriftless thieves of idleness, whose theft, neither enriches them nor relieves 
their necessities for any length of time. 

Some have pronounced the trade of "pawns" a kind of robbery. It is 
certainly an extortion, because it enriches him who engages in it, on the 
private miseries and distresses of others. He takes need- by the forelock, 
and forces it upon its knees, a submissive and pliant suppliant. He buys 
for a half or third value, and sells for the full, sometimes for double value 
which is extortion and theft combined. 

Undue usury is another kind of theft, for like the pawn it preys upon 
necessity. It has no mercy or pity for the distress of wife or children, but 
by the tyranny of avarice, robs them to the utmost of its power, of all the 
means of procuring the comforts and necessaries of life. Its plow goes 
upon Sunday as well as upon other days. Its gripe grows tighter and 
tighter the longer it is suffered, and if permitted, it will never let go until 
the very life blood is squeezed out of its victim, and when the last drop 
trickles out it casts him to the dogs. 

Dishonest speculation is another kind of robbery. The speculator is a 
great gambler, and speculation is a great game. The turning up of any 
particular card, cannot make, honestly, another man's property that of his 
neighbor, nor can it in any way justify the giving or the receiving of such 
property. Although the money may change hands, with the consent and 
knowledge of the parties concerned, yet there being no value received or 
given, the man so giving robs himself and those who may be depending 
upon him, and the man so receiving is guilty of robbery in the sight of 
God. It is exactly the same in the great game of speculation. The suc- 
cess or the failure of a speculation must depend irpon certain events, which 
cannot, by any means whatever, justify the losing or gaining of the property 
staked. The successful speculator is enriched by the venturesome foolish- 
ness and spoliation of his neighbor, which is a dishonest way of becoming- 
rich, and the unsuccessful speculator robs not only himself by a dishonest 
and deliberate hazard of his property to the uncertainty of events, but also 
his creditors and Ins family. The hope of success does, by no means, justify 
the hazard ; if so, then the ruined gambler would be justified in his course, 
because it is this delusive hope that decoys him again and again to the 
gambling house. 



127 

Those tracks which! enrich men by feeding the vices and extravagances 
of the people, are no better than robbery. The distillers of the " fire water,*' 
the vendors of the same, and all who live upon and are enriched by its sale, 
are guilty of something which the text certainly prohibits. Generally 
speaking, ardent spirits is no value for money. On the contrary, it is 
giving in exchange what no man can deny is a great curse, for what is the 
means of manifold blessings. This exchange is not honest, and if so it im- 
plies a theft. In this case, the thing given for money makes sots, idlers, 
villains and criminals of men ; hence the traffic of it robs these men and 
their families, and also society, inasmuch as it has to support the pauperism 
which is consequent upon the excessive use of such articles, and inasmuch 
as it must take expensive measures to guard itself against the crimes of the 
drunken and dissipated. 

The "Card" and "Billiard" trades also may be referred to dishonesty. 
They give no value for money whatever, but are mere " catch pennies." 
All that they give in exchange, are opportunities to waste time; associations 
which are disreputable and dangerous; lessons in fighting, drinking and 
blaspheming ; occasions to contract revolting and irregular habits of life, 
and the worst kind of idleness, and opportunities to get initiated into the 
sublime mysteries of " wire pulling" Indeed, whatever lives upon the 
vices and extravagances of men must, in the nature of things, be dishonest ; 
for whatever any vice, folly, passion or extravagance will demand, can 
neither benefit the social, political or religious welfare of men, nor can any 
such thing be beneficial to soul or body. 

There are some things also about the legal profession, which the text 
prohibits. We admit that litigation is a necessary evil just like war, but it 
is an evil which realty might be greatly meliorated, if men would guard 
their passions and soften their avarice. Law, although intended to be the 
guardian of justice, is often made a powerful engine in the accomplishment 
of fraud and robbery. Men of fertile trickery and flexible principle, have 
disgraced this honorable profession to such an extent, that many good but 
misguided men have denounced the profession as an army of rogues. This, 
of course, is too bitter to be true. Nevertheless it is a truth, that a great 
many in the profession, are enriched by the vices, weaknesses, extravagan- 
ces, dishonesties, quarrels and crimes of their fellow men. It is, indeed, too 
true that many lawyers make it their business to encourage fraudulent liti- 
gation, that they may share in the spoils of injustice. All who do this 
must not be insulted at being called thieves, for God certainly knows them 
by no other name. But there are many men of noble minds, of stern 
honesty, of high polish and pure Christianity in this profession. So they 
ought to be distinguished from the restless pettifogger and the miserable 
lawyer, whose business it is to subvert and outwit all law. When two 



128 



parties go to law. they are certainly both to blame, but one must be de- 
cidedly wrong. If the party in the wrong explain such to his counsel, and 
that counsel agree with his client to make the law, by a course of trickery, 
sustain the wrong, he is not only a disgrace to his profession, but also a 
deliberate cheat, an intellectual swindler, and a legal robber. There are so 
many strange, devious intricacies in the law, that the pettifogger is often 
victorious, and there is scarcely any help for it. 

To conclude — " Thou shalt not steal " means that we cannot defraud, 
cheat, steal, rob, plunder or swindle anything from our neighbor, either in 
trade, by profession, by power or praise, by tongue, hands or arms, by art 
or device, by false promises or pretences, or by any other means whatever, 
without rendering ourselves, before the judgment seat of God, guilty of 
theft. "Tkou shalt not steal," means, also, that we are to - deal honestly 
with all men in all our transactions ; that we must not, willingly or know- 
ingly, wrong or help to wrong any man ; . that we must be kind to the 
.needy and distressed, and be charitable to them in all our dealings, and be 
ready to give them, as lending unto the Lord ; that we are to provide all 
things honestly in the sight of God and man ; that we are to secure, hon- 
estly, a competen^v for ourselves and families, by an honest calling ; that 
we are to be diligent, with our hands and minds, in working the things 
that are good and useful, in order that we may eat our bread and peace in 
honesty, and be not chargeable to any. 

My brethren, honesty is a great virtue ; it makes man the noblest work 
of God, and it is, of all others, the best policy. Men who now think it too 
slow a way to become rich and to gain their objects, must, sooner or later, 
realize that it is a virtue of which God highly approves. It is better than 
riches, than honors and fame, because it will stand the wear and tear of 
eternity. When judgment will be opened, we will not be asked concerning 
our riches, but concerning our honesty. In that day, even ourselves will 
lose all interest in the riches we have heaped up — we will ' have no care 
who will gather them. All the u fine things," those golden opportunities 
for money making will then be as stubble before us. All the smartness of 
the worldly man will then flee away before the simplicity of the earth's 
simple ones. The advancement of the foolish will swallow up the sharpness 
of the worldly wise. We will find it no recommendation whatever in the. 
day of doom, that we have been successful in speculation ; that we have 
made victims bleed on the altars of our avarice : that we have wronged and 
injured many unsuspecting men. No. no; these will only add to our con- 
fusion. We will only be simply asked, were we honest ? did we work 
honestly with our hands, that we might not be chargeable to any ? Then 
will be the time to judge of true wisdom — then will we see the difference 
between the fool of the world and the undone fool of eternity. 



8EEMON 



XIII. 



TKE NINTH COMMANDMENT. 



Text- — Exodus xx, 16 : " Thou slialt not bear false witness against thy 

neighbor" 

This is that law of the Decalogue which looks to the wellbeing of out- 
fellow man, in his good name, reputation or- character. It seems to set 
character or good name at a very high estimate. The first and princi- 
pal part of a mams happiness is, to have a conscience void of offence, both 
towards God and towards man : the second is, to have a character un- 
blemished, or to live in the world unspotted and untarnished. Both these 
things are essential to happiness here. Some men have professed, and do 
so now, that they care not for any opinion the world may entertain concern- 
ing them — that they neither desire its good or bad report. This is, indeed, a 
state of independence to which few, if any, can ever attain. The command- 
ment before us. supposes that a great share of man's happiness depends upon 
his good name, notwithstanding all that may be said to the contrary. The 
ultimate effect of all injustice, is to produce sorrow and unhappiness, but if 
no unhappiness may attend the spoliation of character, there can be no 
very great wrong in depriving a man of it. If any man can be as happy 
with a bad name as with a good one, it would be as wrong to deprive him 
thereof as it would be of his good. But why, then, is this law honored 
with a place in the Decalogue, if a good name be valueless ? Why does 
it stand there as a stem and irrevocable prohibition against the traduction 
of character? Is it because the crime prohibited is a mere injustice? or, 
because its injustice is productive of much that tends to unhappiness and 
sorrow I I think it is for both reasons, but especially the latter. Whence 
we may sately conclude, that those who profess to be so veiy high above 
this world's opinion of them, as that they are perfectly careless about it, 
are all the while deceiving themselves and attempting also to deceive 
others. A good name, in good society, is a passport to innumerable sub- 
stantial blessings; and a bad name, even in a bad society, generally shuts 
the doors against advancement and prosperity, and many other blessings 
which are sources of much real joy and happiness. The destruction of fair 
17 



130 



fame is a great evil, and however much some men may think themselves 
above the good or bad opinion of the world, the pains they cannot help 
taking in a variety of ways, to have men think well of them, is a presump- 
tion that they after all set a high value upon reputation. 

The All-seeing Eye of God beholds the many evils and great injustice 
which spring from bearing false witness against our neighbor ; and because 
He put a special law against it in the Decalogue, we have all reason to 
conclude that the evils attending it are very hurtful and numerous, and 
that the crime itself is a very heinous sin, both against God and man. 

This bearing of false witness may be committed in many ways, only a 
few of which we can notice. We at once see that all kinds of lying, 
slandering-, tale-heaving, pernicious gossiping, busy tattling, perjury and 
evil speaking, are strictly prohibited, because they are no less than bearing 
false witness. This law, like all the others, forbids the crime it refers to in 
the highest sense, so that the prohibition may embrace all its modifications, 
small and great. We have here, then, a law directly against accusing 
our neighbor falsely, in judgment, i. e., swearing falsely to his prejudice 
in any sense whatever. Perjury, of course, is included in the third law 
of the First Table, because it is the taking of God's name in vain. But 
here it is specially prohibited, because it invariably inflicts very seri- 
ous injuries upon our neighbor. We discover, then, that perjury is like 
adultery — a dark complication of many crimes in one. It treats the God 
of high heaven with the utmost irreverence, does violence #to His truth, 
profanes His holy name, denies Him the awful attribute of Omniscience, 
and appeals to Him under oath, to bear witness to what is utterly false. It 
assails our neighbor's good name, property or life, as the case may be, and 
hence it may become a theft or a murder, as circumstances may permit — 
and even in the most trifling sense, it is a serious dereliction of that duty 
we owe our neighbor. Of perjury as a sin against Crod, we have spoken on 
a former occasion ; we have also glanced at it as a crime against man. 
We will, therefore, pass from it and proceed to the consideration of some 
other kinds of false testimony, from which, perhaps, but few of ourselves 
can clear our skirts. 

There is no judge of man so unmerciful and unjust as man himself. He 
is the most relentless censor, and unrighteous inquisitor of all. Although 
it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of God, yet, in a sense, it is still 
more fearful to fall into the hands of man. David, in his wisdom, prayed 
against this cruel extremity. When man cannot or does not prosecute 
man with fire and sword, he will do so with that unruly member — the 
tongue ; he will wound his neighbor with this two-edged sword. Let us keep 
false swearing altogether out of view; can we not with ease and certainty 
place a hand upon that heart which " deviseth wicked imaginations ?" Are 



131 



the witnesses few, who go about with false reports, " who speak lies and 
sow discord among brethren ?" No, my brethren, there are many who are 
exceedingly industrious, always in the most common yet the most fashion- 
able branches of bearing false witness, viz. : Slander and Evil Speak- 
ing. Slander should be the work of the devil alone. It is the raising of 
false reports against our neighbor, whom we know to be innocent of the 
things charged, with the diabolical design to blacken his good name-, fair 
fame or character, and of injuring him either in person, property or welfare. 
It is slander also to retail these evil reports, by the spreading of them to 
our neighbor's prejudice, when we know them to be false, or when we may 
have good reason to believe them so. There are other kinds or branches 
of this crime, all which tend to the same unjust and fiendish end. But the 
above is slander in the main. 

In all communities, large as well as small, there is invariably a plentiful 
sprinkling of those pestilent arrows of society, who are, unfortunately, more 
busy about what their neighbors may think, say or do, than about their 
own lawful business. You must remember that this anxiety on their part, 
by no means arises from a desire to do good or prevent evil, but to have 
plausible opportunities to slander and defame character. This malignant 
propensity is an index to the heart in which it dwells. It putrifies the 
w r hole character, and makes it to stand out in bold relief among the pollu- 
tions of the earth, an utter abomination in the eye of God. Such men and 
women have been, in all ages of the world, viewed as great pests of society, 
and have been pronounced, very justly, the scourges of innocence. 

The first part of the slanderers barbarous trade is to asperse the actions 
of men, by attributing to them wrong motives and wicked ends, even when 
such actions in themselves are able to suffer the closest scrutiny. When 
we see a man so conducting himself as to give every fair and reasonable 
indication that he is influenced by good and proper motives, it is certainly 
slander, calumny or bearing false witness against him, to judge prejudicially 
of those motives, and to pronounce them selfish and impure. It is unchar- 
itable to suspect them, but it is foolish willfully to misconstrue them. He 
only who has felt the wound of slander in this way, can appreciate its 
anguish. It is he who can understand its cruelty, injustice and malignity. 
It is much easier for a man to endure a misconstruction of his actions, than 
of the motives w r hich may be actuating him. Actions may be injudicious, 
yet be the fruits of the purest motives ; but impugn the motives, then the 
whole man is tainted — the prestige of character is gone. Have you not 
had such happen to you in your own experience in the world ? When 
each motive was pure, each action, so far as you felt, was devoid of sel- 
fishness or any turpitude, did not then the slanderer make his onslaught, 
and cause you, in much sorrow and sickness of heart, to pronounce all men 



132 



liars ? Few are they who have escaped the tongue of slander. It may be 
that many of ourselves even, must be engaged through life in hiding its 
ghostly scar from the eyes of men, although its wound may be healed. No 
matter how good a man or woman may be, no matter how pure and inno- 
cent the victim of calumny may be, .slander only requires a specious pretext 
—a starting point, that it may bury its fangs deep in the flesh. The envi- 
ous, and unbridled tongue only requires the faintest provocation, that it may 
wag with profligate malignity. A man or woman has only to make the 
slightest stumble or misstep, when all mercy and consideration are cast aside 
—the fat bulls of Bashan surround them. The busy mockers go to work 
with a hearty will, and the sword of defamation is immediately whetted. 
There are no pains taken to inquire into the cause of the crime, whatever 
it may be ; no allowances made for human weaknesses ; no mitigating cir- 
cumstances whatever taken into account ; no temptations placed upon the 
balance; the force of education and habit is villainously lost sight of; 
virtues are unsparingly hid away ; all redeeming qualities are with the most 
barbarous design concealed ; ignorance or thoughtlessness, youth or inex- 
perience ; in fact, all palliating circumstances are purposely passed over in 
dead silence. But the action or word which is the occasion of this slander, 
and which, after all, may have only the semblance of criminality, is greedily 
fastened upon, and made to stand out in the boldest relief before the eye of 
the world, to the great prejudice, nay, ruin of the slandered. 

It is slander also, to call our neighbor by such names and epithets as 
would indicate that he has been guilty of saying or doing things which 
would not accord with a good reputation. There may be no direct charge 
brought in this way of bearing false witness, yet great harm may be done 
by the application of such names. This is a very common kind, and it is 
as cruel as any. We often see, that in the moment a man may become 
an object of envious hate, that he is called by many opprobrious names, 
which indirectly charge him with words and actions of which he was never 
guilty. In the strife of tongues, the clamor against him is so overwhelm- 
ing, that he finds it a hopeless matter to stem the torrent. This is a sub- 
terfuge, resorted to very frequently by conclaves of men for political purpo- 
ses, and sometimes by the private calumniator, who may have no other way 
to vent his rancor than in gross and uncharitable names. This is not a 
direct way of slandering or of misconstruing Avords and actions, but it is 
tantamount to either — its purposes and ends are the same, and its effects 
are equally mischievous. Men and women have been often so fairly pros- 
trated in the dust by this kind of slander, that years of careful conduct and 
prudent walk were scarcely able to raise them up again. 

. There is such a thing as " killing a man with little praise." This is 
scientific slandering. It hides a great deal of what ought to be praised, 



133 

and adds a great deal that ought not. The good word is buried in the bad. 
The praise is lost in the many significant "Buts" and "Ifs" which follow. 
It supports the lie with the aid of valueless truths, hiding certain circum- 
stances which would reveal the whole truth, it takes pains only to take 
notice of just so many of the least praiseworthy, as will give a specious 
coloring to the intended slander. The light and shade of this artful defa- 
mation are so nicely touched off, as that the picture drawn is often not only 
mistaken for a time, but also for a very flattering likeness. It can maintain 
the confidence of friendship, while it is poisoning its very essentials. It 
has the smile, nay the tear of charity on its face, while it is clutching the 
dagger to deal an effective blow. 

Slander may also be accomplished by the very many kinds of sly and 
dubious insinuations, which men who are given to irony employ, by cur- 
ting and suspicious inuendoes and cynical suggestions ; by half explained 
hints, intentional equivocations, and the meaning " hums " and " has " 
which are such true conductors of distressing doubts and suspicion. A 
battery of intelligent looks and winks, the strange raising and lowering of 
the brows, certain expressions of countenance, work wonders in the way of 
scandal. Also curious intonations of the voice, peculiar accentuations and 
emphasizing of particular words, may be employed to convey sinister im- 
pressions of the victim of defamation. All these may be used effectually to 
turn a truth, stated in plain words, into a falsehood, or to convey a meaning- 
contrary to that wdiich the words of themselves would naturally carry with 
them, unless an air of mystery, irony or suspicion were added to them. 

We will only mention another kind of scandal. It consists in fastening 
upon the faults and failings of our neighbor, and magnifying them in num- 
ber and degree, and so speculating upon them as that they will turn out to 
be very prejudicial to the fair fame of our victims. A venial fault in this 
way may be made an enormous crime, and a mere indiscretion a very 
serious turpitude. A frailty of ignorance or inexperience, may be made to 
appear a wickedness of intention, or a mere thiug of habit or carelessness 
the result of a bad heart or dark motive. This is imputing to the actions 
and intentions of our neighbor, things which have no existence in truth, 
but in the wanton malignity of the detainer's heart. 

Evil speaking, though in one sense different from slander, is yet, in inten- 
tion and effect, exactly the same as slander. It is the trade of the busv 
tale-bearer, who runs up and down with mischief-making stories. It is 
taking up reproach against our neighbor, and flying with it hither and 
thither. It is a revelation of hurtful and scandalous secrets — a breach of 
all confidence — an intrenchment upon all faith. It is backbiting with 
the tongue to the kindling of strife and enmity. It is the work of him 
" whose words are as wounds that go down into the uttermost parts of the 



134 



belly.'' Evil speaking is not exactly the coining of false reports, bu; 
retailing of them, whether they be true or false. It we should repeat a 
story to him of whom it is told, for the purpose of correcting him or of 
putting him on his guard, it is neither scandal nor evil speaking ; but should 
we run with such story from house to house, and from acquaintance to 
acquaintance, for the mere morbid pleasure of retailing an evil report, we 
at once become evil speakers, and the result of our action is defamation. 
If we should introduce these reports into our ordinary conversation, merely 
for the sake of having something to say, in order that pleasure may be 
afforded to inveterate gossip — if we tell it with that peculiar zest and satis- 
faction which at once betrays a purpose to injure or destroy the good name 
of our neighbor, our tongues become as burning coals, our lips as wood to 
fine, and we may be •viewed as the most detestable, trifling, dangerous and 
unfaithful of all men who annoy society. Although evil speaking pre-sup- 
poses, in the main, the telling of what is true, yet it is as likely to' spread 
the false as the true, because those given to it, seldom or never have the 
desire nor take the rime to discriminate. But granting that it never spreads 
the false, yet it is a great crime to make a cruel and uncharitable use of 
our neighbors secrets which may be trustee! to our honor. It is a very 
malignant offence, both against God and man, because it brings needless 
hate and discord among His children, and then inflicts a great but cause- 
less injury upon those whom we are commanded to love. But tale-bear- 
ing does by no means necessarily expose the truth, because it more fre- 
quently retails the false. If, then, it be a great sin to expose the faults of 
our neighbor needlessly, how much greater must the sin be when we give 
publicity to false reports, with no other design than that of assaulting the 
character of our neighbor when he is helpless, Slander may be compared 
to a scourge of scorpions, and evil speaking to a scourge of thrice knotted 
cords. 

In whatever form or modification slander and evil speaking may present 
themselves, we must see them as' the fruits of the worst passions and of the 
meanest and most debased hearts. The thief has necessity, or the strength 
of avarice to offer as an excuse for his crime. The murderer has the fire 
of passion or some biting outrage to plead for him. The adulterer and 
fornicator will point to temptation and their own weakness, as extenuations. 
The perjurer has bribery, or some other strong motive, to palliate his crime. 
But whence can the miserable slanderer, the silly tattler, the wanton gossip, 
the busy tale-bearer get their excuse ? Surely not in that inherent mean- 
ness of heart, in that fiendish disposition, in that sleepless malignity of 
spirit which characterize them. These, so far from being excuses, are cer- 
tainly aggravations. These mischief makers are far beneath honorable re- 
venge, though not unworthy the blow of justice. The viper is crushed in 



135 



disgust, not in honestjndignation. Some people Lave a taste for the very- 
marvellous, some for the horrible, some for the bustle of fashion, and some 
for the wearisome strife of life, but there is a numerous class who could not 
C r et comfortably through this world at all, unless they have their neighbors' 
characters delineated to their satisfaction. They have a decided relish for 
defamation; it is the only thing that will excite either their interest or 
curiosity, or relieve the pretty languor of their uselessness. Therefore we 
cannot much wonder that many an interesting and talkative man has 
found the key to fashionable society, buried in a budget of scandal — that 
many an airy and dangerous woman can find no other path to her seat 
among what is called the refined, but her ruinous tattle. We would cer- 
tainly be apt to suppose, that such characters would prove harmless from 
their very silliness and worthlessness, but these are the very things which 
make them to be feared, because they are listened to with attention by 
those who are as silly, but who have the power to do much harm. The 
serious slanderer will naturally bring very grave charges at once,* and 
thereby arouse the inquiry and opposition of his victim. Neither his 
charges nor himself can remain long in ambush. But the trifling calum- 
niator will nibble the flesh from the bones of his victim, speck by speck, 
without causing much pain, until the stout man becomes a very skeleton. 
He is more apt to be treated with contempt than anything else, while doing 
his mischief, until a long list of trifling charges are disseminated abroad, 
and until the minds of a multitude of friends and acquaintances are fairly 
poisoned. To counteract all this, and to clear it up in detail, would, in all 
likelihood, be utterly beyond the time, energy, courage and tact of the man 
thus assailed. The chairs around some tea boards, ma}', indeed, be com- 
pared to so many judgment seats, whereon are seated, not only self-sufficient 
reorganizes of society, but also its severe censors and judges. In such 
-ocial gatherings, we may meet with the unappeasable philanthropist, 
who wants to do good to the few at the expense of the many — to bring 
about good by doing evil. We maj also meet with the discontented cynic, 
who can discover no good anywhere or in any person, but in the place 
where he happens to be sitting, and in the persons to whom he may be 
talking ; when he is alone, he can only see good in himself. We may also 
meet with the inveterate gossip and tale-bearer, who would sink into the 
darkest shade of insignificance, if there were no story to tell or if he had 
nobody to defend. These judges have no fee or salary beyond the luxury 
of mischief making. Without the consent of any jury, the victim is con- 
demned, whether innocent or guilty, and in due course of time he is sure to 
suffer the penalty. In this way hundreds of characters are seriously injured. 
We do not mean by instancing the tea table, that it is the only place where 
this thing is done. We have our vendors of scandal in almost all social 



136 



gatherings, and also in the privacy of the closet. Every stitch in some 
sewing circles is an index to some delineation of character. There are 
regular establishments — wholesale and retail dealers in.it. We are pested 
with the industrious runner and the mean peddler of it. We have our 
eaves-droppers and listeners ; we have our formal callers, who call merely to 
discover, or learn, or to exchange. All these see things which none else 
could see, but those blessed with double sight. They hear words spoken 
which were never uttered at all, or were spoken in harmless conversation. 
They are very miracles of double sight and double hearing. Nothing very 
mysterious or marvellous in the conduct of others can possibly escape them. 
The most private affairs of the most private and distant people must be 
discovered by them. How people live — what are their means — what their 
parents were — how they were brought up— what they have been doing and 
saying for years past, and what are their plans for years to come. They 
have many family and individual secrets to tell, and they tell them in the 
strictest confidence, in which, indeed, they give and receive all secrets. 
They don't want their story to go any further, yet they tell it wherever 
they go, with the same charitable injunction to secresy. But enough of 
them. 

There are a few other things I must refer to here, which are certainly 
bearing false witness. To bribe a witness to swear falsely, to encourage 
him or intimidate him to do so in any way ; to confuse him, by artful pre- 
cognition, while on oath ; to suborn him in any way whatever, or to will- 
fully falsify his testimony, is in the sight of God, to partake of the crime 
which the text prohibits. It is, in intention and effect, not only a perjury 
but a modification of slander. 

Forgery may be made another way of bearing false witness, as it is a 
mode of effectual theft. Criminal, injurious and libelous documents may 
be so written, or counterfeited, as to be mistaken for the work of our neigh- 
bor, on whom of course, the punishment, shame and injury consequent on 
such writings, must be visited, although perfectly innocent. The same 
result may be effected by the forging of seals and signets, or any other 
thing which might not only wrong our neighbor in his property, but also 
in his reputation, by fastening crime upon him. This maybe made a very 
sure and insidious way to destroy fair fame. 

Rash or unguarded speech, although not uttered with any intention of 
doing wrong, may, still in effect be a very dangerous kind of false witness- 
ing. Those who may hear our hasty and injudicious expressions with re- 
gard to our neighbors, are, generally speaking, uncharitable enough to put 
the worst construction upon them, and to draw the worst conclusions from 
them. While a man may be only giving expression to a little ill temper 
or peevishness against an acquaintance, with no intention whatever of in- 



137 

jafiog him, his listeners will be sjure to let his words have their foil weight: 
and then the man spoken against, is sure to have the benefit of the worst 
meaning. 

Hurried, unstudied and careless conclusions may become slander against 
our neighbor. To arrive hastily at- a conclusion concerning a man's word? 
or actions, is often to come to a very wrong and prejudicial one. Hence, 
we may unjustly be ascribing to that man, motives and other things which 
would be destructive of his character. This may be partially excusable 
on the ground that the injury done is not intended ; but it is, after all, not, 
so very excusable, since the carelessness and haste manifested, very nearly 
come up to the criminal intention. 

The receiving of slanders and calumnies — believing them without proper 
and worthy testimony ; encouraging evil speaking by evil credulity ; show- 
ing attention to evil report and to the busy bodies who carry it, may all be 
reduced or referred to bearing false witness. Also employing, tempting in 
any way, bribing or seeking any one to speak falsely of our neighbor, may 
be reduced to the same crime. In fact, anything and everything, which 
will in anywise tend to injure any one in this manner, is either expressly 
or tacitly prohibited by the text. 

We will now conclude by glancing at the ruinous tendencies of this 
crime, and then at the positive duties implied in. the prohibition of the law. 
Good and bad are alike the victims of this crime. It makes no distinc- 
tions whatever. All men are subject to the taint of its desolating breath. 
The weak and the strong : the timid and the bold ; the delicate and the 
shameless ; the learned and the ignorant ; the holy and the profane ; all, 
all are assailed with the same unsparing malignity. It is an amusement 
for a fiendish and abandoned heart, for its object is to destroy whatever is 
splendid in fortune, whatever is cheering in' hope, whatever is honorable in 
position, and whatever is sweet in innocence. It is a cold, barbarous and 
cowardly way of ruining an absent neighbor in the thing he holds most 
sacred. It destroys the peace of many innocent women, and drives those 
who may have stumbled, into despair, from which they will scarcely ever 
recover, unless some potent arm be reached forth to save. It crushes and 
disgusts many a noble hearted man, who would be useful to his kind, a 
brilliant ornament to society and an honor to his country. It comes be- 
tween man and wife, and transforms the hearth into one continual scene of 
recrimination. It disturbs society to its very foundations, sowing furious 
discord and bitter contention whenever its voice is heard. It is a base du- 
plicity, a fiendish envy which deceives <vith a smile, while stinging the very 
vitals of its victim. It is the cause of numberless sorrows; and the goad 
which drives men to many dreadful crimes. It cuts asunder the teuderest 
ties of life, and turns hope into a desolation. It subverts all friendship, 
18 



13$ 

robs it of all its expectations, and poisons all social intercourse. Its plea- 
sure is to ruin all amity, placability and low. and to see bitter strife in full 
blast. It has no eye to pity or charity : but tiger-like, it sports in the work 
of death as an amusement. Its very smile is a dangerous mockery, and 
its very praises and caresses are more deadly than the breath of the cour- 
sing plague. The poison of asps accompanies its fulsome laudations 5 and 
its approaches are worse than a sweeping condemnation. Its meaning 
looks are instinct with hate and danger, and its very motion and gesture is 
an instrument of exquisite torture. Its very silence is as guilty and bitter 
as its words are burning and blasting. Its main object is to impeach the 
purity of innocence, to dim whatever outshines itself in reputation, position, 
power, talent, wealth and comfort. Of all envy it is the most debased ; 
of all avarice it is most griping and cowardly. It is impossible for it to 
spare its neighbor in any condition of life, for it hates to see him good, 
happy, prosperous or comfortable ; yet it fears to right him in open day. 
It ravishes ail the treasures of humanity, and levels all its most splendid 
structures. Its breath leaves a stain behind it. which the tears of penitence 
cannot wash out. nor the eye of sorrow ever obliterate. It is as unforgiv- 
ing as hell, and more implacable than the hyena* 

Ye judges of men — ye censors of fellow worms, who hath given you 
the liberty or the right to deal out this inhumanity \ Who art thou that 
j tidiest another \ You have no right even to condemn the guilty, for there 
is only One that judgest — God, "What though your brother fall — what 
though your sister stumble, is it yours to condemn and punish \ But if 
thev stand, how dare you. in the face of heaven, drag them into undeserved 
condemnation ? Our lips should be fast closed against our brother even 
when guilty : our hearts should open in pity to him, when, like the prodi- 
gal he returns penitent. 

Probably to talk of forgiveness to these vile Pharisees in society, is a 
mere waste of time ; we will therefore call their attention to something else. 
Thou self-righteous hypocrite — thou white-washed sepulchre, know you not 
that your wicked assumption, your great cruelty, your abominable pride in 
thus judging your fellow men. are much more hateful in the eyes of God 
than the real or imaginary sin with which you charge your brother i Know 
you not that your own very crime in this, is the very thing that made hell, 
and brought sorrow, death and corruption into the world ) Censorious 
one, unless you were guilty yourself you would not accuse others — your 
conduct is the subterfuge of guilt. You accuse to escape accusation. You 
direct attention to your neighbor that you yourself may be hid. You have 
an interest, nay, a pride in bringing down all around you to your own level, 
with the hope that your own shame may be concealed. You have the 
fiendish design to keep the fallen one down, that yourself may be suffered 



1.39 



to stand. Your reputation depends upon the vices and follies of your neigh- 
bor, and your hopes come from his ruin. We know your vain subterfuge. 
Should your guilt be hid from men, it is well for you to remember that 
there is a day coming, in which justice will be done you ; wherein that 
pity which you so often denied your brother will be denied to yourself. 
A day in which all your high opinions of yourself, and your low opinions 
of your fellow men must be changed — then your insolence, pride and cru- 
elty will cease. The angels themselves do not think themselves pure enough 
to become the judges and censors of men. Are you then cleaner than the 
heavens ? is your face brighter than those of the seraphim, which are cov- 
ered before the throne ? Is your life so immaculate ; your virtue so dog- 
ged, so pure, so ineffable as that they abide the full blaze of eternal light, 
and the scrutiny of that eye which pierces the reins of all hearts ? " Thou 
superb Pharisee," just attend to the call within your own bosom, and it 
will take you before another tribunal besides that of your own pride and 
self-righteousness. Before that bar, all your mock indignation, all your 
counterfeit contempt for your neighbor, will not sustain you against the 
conviction, that the penitent adulterer and fornicator are better than you. 
All the loud smiting upon the breast, all the smooth oil of your hypocrisy, 
all your artificial self-denial and virtues, all your miserable paraded charities 
and pompous vanity will only add to your confusion and dismay. Should 
the world greet thee with Rabbi, Rabbi ; should the highest seat in the 
synagogue be swept and garnished for you ; and should the market place 
move with respect at your approach, your guilt will certainly come to light 
— you are only a miserable hypocrite after all. When you will be called 
upon to appear before the throne of retribution ; Avhen eternal flames will 
dry up the sea and lick out the stars from the firmament, your righteous- 
ness will be fairly tested — but it will fail. Your eyes will then be opened 
to the blackness of your crimes ; and that arm upon which you so long 
leaned will drop nerveless by your side — then you will cry for that mercy 
which you invariably withheld from your neighbor. As you deem yourself 
above mercy in this world, on account of your much righteousness and 
manifold virtues, you will not be accounted an object of mercy in the next 
world. Your barbarity in refusing the tears of a fallen brother or sister here, 
will cause your own to fall throughout eternity in liquid drops of fire. Your 
cruelty in despising the penitence of a broken and contrite heart here, will 
cause your own to become a prey in eternity to the most frantic grief and 
despair. God Himself receives the tears of penitence ; and what He re- 
ceives, no man can despise without giving great offence. He loves the sac- 
rifice of a broken and contrite heart — He listens attentively to the half 
smothered sigh ; and He hears readily the timid but fervent prayer. He 
never quenches the smoking flax nor does he break the bruised reed* 



140 



" Thou proud Pharisee," dare not then to do what the Judge eternal does 
not do; never dare to crush what God would both in justice and mercy 
sustain. Let the returning children of sin be contented with this — let them 
be reassured — let the sigh of unrequited sorrow be hushed, for the Pharisee 
will soon cease to judge ; and then all will be peace. Let no depth of 
crime or shame deter any one from throwing himself into the arms of 
Almighty God, because He is a God of merey — He is no Pharisee. 

Now, my brethren, this law, by forbidding all manner of bearing false 
witness, commands certain duties which are theopposites of the things pro- 
hibited. We are then to speak of our neighbors in all places and at all 
times with truth and charity, religiously avoiding whatever would need- 
lessly injure his good name or defame him in any way. We are to so 
order our speech with respect to his words and actions, as that no false im- 
pressions can be conveyed concerning them. We are neither to add to nor 
subtract from them, in order that they may not be mistaken or miscon- 
strued. And even when we are telling his actions and repeating his words 
as they were really done or spoken, we must not, by any trick of delivery 
or peculiar use of our countenance, or tone of the voice, attempt to change 
their meaning or intention. We are to be careful and charitable in receiv- 
ing reports, and to be fair an*d honest when it is necessary to give any. 
We are to sustain our neighbor's reputation as much as possible on every 
occasion, making all just allowances for faults committed, and giving all 
the praise when such is just and expedient. When we cannot excuse or 
extenuate, we must not aggravate — in such a case Ave should rather be 
silent. But if we cannot hold our tongues, we should use them in the 
lovely and heavenly exercise of casting over their "faults and foibles" the 
ever blessed " mantle of charity and Christian forbearance." 



SERMON XIV. 



THE TENTH COMMANDMENT. 



Text — Exodus xx, 17 : " Thou.shalt not covet thy neighbor *s house, thou 
shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid- 
servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's." 

This great law is a recapitulation, as it were, of all the foregoing duties 
laid down in the Decalogue with respect to our neighbor. It comprehends 
all the duties of the Second Table, by legislating against what is the source 
of all law-breaking on the part of man, viz. : all inordinate desires and 
passions, all envy and coveiousness. We know that it is the inward motive 
that actuates man, either to virtue, or vice, and resolves him either to the 
path of duty or of disobedience. Thus this law being one for the regula- 
tion and proper restraining of our passions and desires, may be compared 
to the broad and solid foundation upon which the sublime structure of the 
Second Table is reared. It is the one ineffable beam of divine wisdom, in 
which the others all but lose themselves. The most simple amongst us 
must know, that the surest way to avoid theft and all kinds of dishonesty, is 
to conquer our covetousness and overcome our strong inclinations to 
acquisitiveness. If a man subdue his desire to become hastily rich, he will 
deal honestly with all men — he will be completely armed against disobedi- 
ence to the law respecting theft. It is very evident, also, that the most 
effectual way to arm ourselves against the crime of adultery, is to subdue 
any passion which desires it, and to abstain from lusting after that which 
Ave cannot possibly have, without offending the laws of heaven and earth. 
It is also very manifest that murder would never blacken the history of 
man, if Christian philanthropy were to be properly and universally practised. 
If no man would desire the hurt, destruction or death of his fellow man, no 
innocent blood could cry from the ground for vengeance. If anger, strife, 
hatred and malice take not hold upon the human heart, then all quarrelling, 
slandering, evil speaking, injustice and blood-shedding would disappear 
from the earth. What force of wisdom, then, do we discover in this sum- 
ming up of the Decalogue ? What a graphic and fearfully comprehensive 



142 

rale of life is here presented to us. No wonder, rny brethren, that terrific 
fulminations should call the attention of the world to it. 2s o wonder that 
the people should remove in fear from the foot of Sinai, whose* sides the 
lightnings of heaven plowed, as this eternal law was delivered to them. No 
wonder that the trumpet of God awakened the echoes of the wilderness, 
that the voice of this law should be heard unto the utmost parts of the 
earth. 

For a clearer understanding of what this law prohibits, we will consider 
briefly a portion of the history of Ahab, one of Samaria's kings. There 
was one Naboth, a Jezreelite, who had a vineyard in Jezreel, hard by the 
palace of the king. A law which then existed among the Israelites, for- 
bade them to dispose of an inheritance, either by gift or by sale. This fact 
Ahab knew, or ought to have known, and this was Naboth' s answer to th^ 
king on his refusal to part with it. Although Ahab possessed a kingdom, 
yet we may see in this his demand, the strong, furious and inconsiderate 
desires of envy and covetousness. He w r as not contented with a kingdom 
— he must grasp a poor man's inheritance in the very face of God's law 
and of his own nation. He at first seems to have offered an equivalent to 
the Jezreelite. which we may think reasonable enough, but the reasonable- 
ness or fairness of the offer is at once destroyed by the avaricious spirit it 
betrayed and by the great sin it involved. Naboth refused his overtures, 
on the ground that it was unlawful for him to part with the inheritance, 
which was entailed upon himself and family by his ancestors. The con- 
scientious refusal of Naboth to come to any terms in the matter with Ahab. 
instead of warning the king to desist from his unlawful desires, actually 
insulted his pride, and threw him into a state of gloom and despondency. 
His covetousness became furious, and his insulted* pride drove him into 
such a state of mind as that he refused to eat. His spirit was sad because 
its desire was refused. Now, you will observe, that up to this point there 
was nothing in this transaction on the part of Ahab sinful, but his covetous 
desire and the request which it dictated. We can here discover the mad- 
ness of avarice, as exemplified in the case before us. What an effectual 
destroyer of contentment it is ! What an unhappy and dangerous temper 
it gives a man ! We can also see that all the honors, and possessions, and 
glory which a human being can possibly enjoy, cannot satisfy covetousness, 
nor quiet to any degree its everlasting cravings. .Jezebel, his wife, came to 
him and said, by way of comfort or encouragement, K Dost thou now gov- 
ern the kingdom of Israel ' Arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be 
merry : I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.' T What, 
could not a king be comforted unless he obtained possession of a poor man's 
vineyard ? hath the honesty of a poor subject put a king from his food I 
A king is as weak, mean and despicable, under the influence of avarice or 



143 

covetousness, as the veriest beggar. It is most probable that Ahab knew 
what means his wife contemplated to employ in the accomplishment of 
what he so much desired, even before "Naboth was set on high among the 
people." At all events, he approved of them after they were employed, 
which was tantamount to the same thing in the sight of God. The infa- 
mous Jezebel contrived the destruction of the poor owner of the vineyard, 
that Ahab\s covetousness might be satisfied. And, immediately upon the 
murder being committed, the king seizes upon the coveted inheritance — he 
takes possession of the advantages of crime. Here, then, we have Ahab 
plunged into the two remaining crimes of covetousness, viz. : the employ- 
ment of unlawful means to gain the objects of his unlawful desires, and the 
taking and keeping in possession that which was unlawfully desired 
and unlawfully procured. The text prohibits positively the first step 
in the king's crime in this transaction, which was unlawful desire ; the next 
two it forbids by implication, which were the using of unlawful means to 
accomplish such a desire, and then the unlawful taking or keeping of the 
thing thus procured by such means. 

But now it may be asked, what made the king's desire unlawful ; or 
what is that which may make any desire unlawful % In the case of Ahab, 
it is clear that he wished to possess something which the law of God could 
not suffer him to possess lawfully, therefore the wish to do so was wicked, 
i. e., covetous. He desired to own an inheritance which Naboth could not, 
on any account, part with and be innocent. Just in the same way may 
any desire of ours be identified with Ahab's covetousness. A desire that is 
lawful can generally be accomplished by the employment of legitimate 
means, but one that is not, cannot, by any lawful means, because all that 
are employed will be vicious, inasmuch as the desire itself is so. For ex- 
ample — one man may desire another man's wife, but the man whose wife 
she is, cannot part with her, because the law of God prohibits him, and the 
woman so desired cannot render herself up without an infringement of the 
Kitne law. Any desire, then, that will put a man to employ unrighteous 
means, and form deliberate plots and plans to get possession of what his 
neighbor cannot fairly, justly, conveniently, or innocently part with, may 
be resolved into covetousness. Any desire that will so conquer a man as 
to make him use criminal and covert' ends to obtain what is his neigh borV, 
without the consent or knowledge of that neighbor, is a simple unqualified 
act of covetousness. The desire of Ahab would be quite innocent if fie 
could obtain the vineyard by lawful, fair and honest means, but in the 
moment he consented to the employment of the horrid means recorded to 
his disgrace, to gain his point, that moment he stood guilty of the crime 
expressly forbidden in the text, which, in his case, implied murder and theft. 
The prophet of God simply asks him, " hast thou killed and also taken 



144 



possession V He is not charged with covetousness, you will observe, until 
he employed or consented to employ undue means to effect Iris purpose, 
If he had rested with Naboth's refusal, and so overcome the desire, he could 
be charged with no crime whatever. But having suffered his desire to 
master him, it became furious and perfectly unreasonable, so that when fair 
means failed him, he sought foul, which showed his desire to be as deeply 
criminal as the fruit of it was cruel and bloody. 

The law before its by no means supposes, that every strong desire,. even 
when it has something unlawful for its object, is a crime worthy of punish- 
ment. There are men born into the world, prone to very many burning 
and almost ungovernable passions, in whom desire is inconsiderate and 
vehement. Some men are naturally avaricious, others amorous, others 
blood-thirsty, and so on. In the bosoms of such men, at times, of course, 
there will arise spontaneously, such inordinate desires as are most natural to 
their different temperaments and dispositions. But surely the all just God 
cannot bring them into condemnation for that which they cannot help. 
Such men are rather to be approved than condemned, if they give evidence 
that they manage, for the sake of conscience, to suppress all such violent 
passions. "He that overcometh himself, is greater than him who taketh a 
city." But what is the evidence, both to God, themselves and their neigh- 
bor, that they do conquer such intemperate desires ? They do not proceed 
to the using of any means so that the objects of their desires may be gained. 
The absence, of any action on their part to effect this, is surely more than 
a presumption that the endeayop* is wanting also, and the absence of all 
endeavor is also an evidence, that no unlawful resolutions have been made 
to satisfy their passion. They are, therefore, not to be condemned for the 
various inordinate desires which spontaneously rise in their hearts, because 
they rise superior to such, inasmuch as they take care not to satisfy them. 
There is less or more of an evil principle in every man that is born of' 
woman — it is given to us as an inheritance. To say that this is given to 
us by God, is to say that God tempts his creatures with evil. God tempts 
no man, and every man is thus tempted by what St. James calls "his own 
lusts.''' Now, although temptation is an evil, yet it is no sin ; so that a 
man may be tempted by strong desires, and yet commit no sin. The sin 
consists, not in the temptation, but in being drawn away by it. Lust may 
conceive, yet it may be prevented from giving birth to sin. No sin being 
brought forth, sin cannot be finished, and, therefore, there can be no death 
or condemnation. It is here where Ahab sinned. His lust conceived ; he 
suffered it to give birth to sin, and having finished the sin, the dogs were 
to lick his blood where they had licked the blood of the murdered Naboth. 
We are not charged with sin because the devil and the world are tempta- 
tions to us, but we are condemned if we are overcome by them. The same 



145 

may be said of the infirmities of the flesh and the lusts thereof. The mere 
fact of our being subject to them, does not, at once, constitute us sinners. 
It is, and will be as long as we are in the flesh, our natural condition to be 
less or more subject to evil desires ; yet since we have the power and the 
means, through our Lord and Saviour to resist and overcome them, we are 
guilty before heaven the moment we are ensnared. Man will be man 
until his tenement of flesh falls in ruins around him. While he lives, there 
will be a war going on in his members — he will be ever carrying about, 
with him a body of death. Notwithstanding all this, he may be spotlessly 
pure and innocent in the sight of God, that is, as washed in and bought by 
the blood of the Eternal Lamb. Though this war will ever be going on 
between the spirit and the flesh, we are neither to lose our courage nor abate 
our vigilance, because God promises us strength to overcome at the last, 
and to sharpen our watchfulness, by giving us a due and timely appreciation 
of the danger we are frequently in from ourselves. Those of us whose de- 
sires are naturally weak and languid, or are mollified and chastened down 
by painful and constant discipline, ought to be very thankful because the 
battle is all but gained. If nature, at our birth, has chained down the 
legion within us — if our temperaments and dispositions are by nature of 
that calm, easy and even kind which will suffer us to glide through life and 
our duties, rather than struggle through them, let us really feel grateful for 
such a great blessing to Him who is the "giver of every good and perfect 
gift." If our desires have been inordinate, immoderate and furious, and 
are now brought into subjection to the spirit, let us again rejoice, for it is 
still the great goodness of God. But if the giants of our bosoms are yet 
awake, in all their tremendous strength and vigor, let us by no means des- 
pair, for if we do not give way to them nor foster them in any way, we six 
mot ; a great victory will soon be at hand, and the reward of him who 
resisteth much temptation and overcometh many strong enemies, will be 
glorious indeed. The Saviour Himself underwent a bitter conflict alone in 
the wilderness. It was a dark, inscrutable, fearful, terrible struggle. It 
partook largely of that one which dipped his vesture in blood. But who 
can blame Him for being thus tempted ? Will not rather angels and 
even devils give Him praise for coming out from the awful battle victori- 
ous and unscathed ? Heaven, earth and hell must ever give Him the glory 
of an Almighty Conqueror. He indeed was tempted by another, and net 
by Himself, but we are tempted by ourselves. This shows us that all our 
evil desires spring from a principle in ourselves, which is the same as that 
which governed him who tempted our Lord. How often does the dreadful 
experience of this truth crush the heart of the Christian, and bow down his 
wearied spirit into the very dust of despondency. He has to cry continu- 
ally in disquietude of soul, u O, wretched man that I am. who shall deliver 
19 



146 



rue from ibis body of death ¥* He has always to reiterate a truth, which 
is at once lamentable and blessed, " the spirit indeed is willing, but the 
flesh is weak." A truth lamentable, because the flesh is weak in the way 
of duty — -blessed because the spirit is willing, but being willing it will be 
strengthened. 

There are some who covet what is another's, even when they do not em- 
ploy unlawful means to obtain what they desire. We are told that " who- 
soever looketh upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery 
with her already in his heart." It is manifest that our Saviour meant that 
the man so desiring a woman, as that he would commit adultery if he had 
the means and opportunity to do so, the same is really not only guilty, in 
the sight of God, of breaking the last commandment, but also the one with 
respect to adultery. A man may look upon a woman, i <?., he may desire 
her, but if he rise superior to that desire, he has committed no sin, in that 
he looks not upon her to lust after her. But should a man look so as to lust, 
then he is guilty, although the means and opportunity may be wanting to 
him to punish the crime. The same may be said with respect to anything 
else that is our neighbors. A man may desire his neighbors property to 
such an extent, as that he would not hesitate to use unlawful means to ob- 
tain it if such were in his power. But should he desire, for instance, his 
neighbor's house, and so bound and determine himself as not to employ 
any undue means, even should he never obtain it, the simple desire in itself 
is not a sin. Yet if his desire were to lead him to form or make wicked 
determinations and resolutions for the purpose of obtaining it, he will be 
guilty before God of covetousness, and also of theft, even should an oppor- 
tunity never ofTer itself to carry out these resolutions. But should a man 
hate his brother, and desire his destruction, the case is materially altered. 
This is a kind of desire in itself which at once infringes upon all the duties 
we owe our neighbor, although in one sense it may be referred to envy or 
covetousness. The text does not specially legislate for such desires, because 
the preceding laws of the Second Table have already pointed to them. It 
more particularly refers to such desires as are in their first motions mere 
temptations, but which become sinful as soon as they are fostered and obey- 
ed. The moment a man desires the destruction of a brother, that moment, 
in the sight of God, he becomes a murclerer, should he never have formed 
a single resolution to take his life. He may be prevented from gratifying 
his hate or malice, by an endless concurrence of circumstances, in which 
his own personal safety and interest are involved. But if these were re- 
moved, he would no doubt become a man of blood. Even hate is a passion 
which is not sinful in itself when it is directed to proper objects, but when 
misused, misdirected, or when it is allowed to give birth to sinister desires 
with respect to our neighbors life or property, then there is guilt. All our 



141 



passions are innocent, so long as they are properly used and restrained ; 
they are given to us just like many other blessings which we abuse. It is 
exactly so with our desires. When a desire is directed to an improper 
object, it becomes unlawful if not overcome. If it be so inordinate as to put 
us to wicked contrivances, or to the forming of unlawful resolutions, or to 
the doing of endeavors and actions which, are forbidden, then, indeed, the 
desire becomes immediately unlawful. This, certainly, should warn us to 
be careful in our desires ; to see that they would not overpower or drive us 
to imitate, to any extent, the cruelty or covetousness of Ahab. A desire 
may be as sweet to us as a right eye or a right arm, yet if it begin to offend, 
it is better that we pluck it out or cut it off, ere it corrupt and destroy the 
whole body. We are told, in the forcible words of inspiration, that " it is 
more profitable for thee, that one of thy members should perish, and not 
that thy whole body should be cast into hell." 

Now, my brethren, as we understand somewhat the spirit of the summing 
up of the Decalogue, we will say a few words concerning the tendencies of 
the crime forbidden therein. W T hatever crime you point me to, I say there, 
is the result of abused passion and desire. There is nothing among men to 
be so highly prized as liberty, and there is nothing so great as liberty, as 
the emancipation of a man from the slavery of his own passions — this is the 
very essence of liberty. Power, glory and riches, are not to be so much 
desired on account of themselves, as on account of the great good they 
might accomplish. When they are desired for personal aggrandizement, 
ease, luxury and splendor, the purpose of them is completely defeated, and 
the desire of them is sure, at last, to resolve itself into covetousness. It is 
the selfish and inordinate desire of these, that gives birth to so much vice, 
shame and sorrow r , in this world ; it is this, to a very great extent, that 
barbs the " inhumanity of man to man " with such cruelty and meanness, 
and fills the world with crime in its endless varieties and shades. Every 
man seems to think it the end and purpose of his being, to defend himself 
against the avarice of his fellows ; to surround himself with security from 
the uncertain fortunes of this life, so that he may pass through it in ease and 
voluptuousness. And not only does he think it his duty thus to defend 
himself, but also that he may be so defended, to heap wrong upon wrong, 
and injustice upon injustice, until the means of it be secured. By a kind 
of compulsion or necessity, he seems to be drawn to this course of life by 
the condition of the world in which we live, and the proneness within him- 
self to put a high estimate upon what is external and perishable. Temporal 
things are, indeed, to receive their due consideration, but this consideration 
is to be carefully bounded and watched, because in the moment it absorbs 
us, our duties will be lost sight of and crime will soon be sown broadcast. 
A man's desires should look to what is of this world, to riches and to their 



148 



personal advantages, with extreme caution, ere he will come to love and 
pursue them for themselves, and not for the liberality and beneficence in 
which they might be employed. The mere desire to acquire wealth, inrlu- 
ence and fame is honorable in itself, but only honorable so long as it is pro- 
perly and legitimately controlled, or so long as it has an eye to the well- 
being, not only of the individual desiring, but also to that of his neighbor. 
When it becomes entirely selfish, it soon resolves itself into that insatiable 
avarice or covetousness of which the text speaks. When, then, a desire bo 
overcomes a man as to make him lose ail consideration of his neighbor, 
where is the guarantee against wrong and injustice ? When a man is sub- 
jugated by fear, what can be trusted to his bravery ? When a man is en- 
slaved by pleasure, what can be trusted to his fidelity and industry ? So, 
then, when a man is shut up to seln, and ruled by covetous desires and the 
passion of acquisitiveness, what can be trusted to his honor and honestv \ 
Nothing ! He will, as a matter of course, use all fair and foul means within 
his reach to gain the object of his desires or lusts, whatever they may be. 
There is nothing that will deter him from cutting his way through law and 
justice to those objects, but other selfish desires and motives. If there 
were no danger to himself in murder, he would be guilty of that crime, 
that he might be satisfied. If there were no danger to himself in robbery 
and theft, he would rob and steal, that he might acquire. He will only "be 
just when he is compelled, and even then he will be sorry and unhappy. 
He can only spare through fear, and give only when the calls of a neces- 
sary expedience are made upon him. We have only to look calmly on 
Ahab, that we may fully comprehend the fearful danger, and misery, and 
shocking tendencies of an avaricious and covetous disposition. Ahab was 
powerful — he governed a kingdom, therefore he had the means to consum- 
mate his wickedness. The same temper makes Ahabs of all men who are 
governed by it, although all men may not have the same power, means or 
opportunity to show themselves out as he had. Large possessions, and 
great riches, and much power could not appease the avarice of the king ; 
nor, indeed, could these satisfy ours if we are become its slaves. The more 
a desire is pampered, the more imperious does it become : the oftener the 
cravings of avarice are responded to, the louder and more clamorous its 
calls become. Ahab, a little before the murder and robbery of Naboth, 
was delivered from a famine, and from the terrors of a war with Syria. 
The nation which a little ago was sinking beneath the scourge of want, 
was now relieved ; the throne which was tottering beneath the blows of 
Benhadad, was preserved once again to the tyrant Ahab. He could now 
rule in peace. But was he satisfied ? No ! Avarice ruled him, and made 
him wretched even in prosperity. A poor vineyard arouses his base cupidity, 
and for that miserable possession he became a murderer and a thief. See 



149 



how discontented and wretched it made himself ; see how it banished from 
his bosom all sense of justice, and honor, and all feelings of mercy ; see 
how it stripped him of all dignity, magnanimity and wisdom, and filled his 
bosom with relentless ferocity and malignity ; see how it blinded him to 
the enormity of crime and to the blackness of ingratitude, and see how it 
made of a king a bloody villain, and of a man a merciless and implacable 
fiend. See again how it stained the earth with innocent blood, and robbed 
the poor of the gifts of God; see how it gave swiftness of foot to the sons 
of Belial to bear false witness, and how it caused a whole city to partake in 
the crime of the murderer. And, my brethren, is the history of Ahab 
alone on the annals of the world ? No, no ; we see on the face of every 
age of the world, the selfsame fruits of avarice and covetousness. We see 
it now — we see it here ! Go ask that ragged and forlorn man, whose pale 
visage betokens biting poverty and unwitnessed destitution, why he is so 
sad and melancholy ? and he will tell you that an Ahab has despoiled him 
of his inheritance, and thrust him forth to the cold mercies of an unpitying 
world. Come to the lonely widow, and ask her why are her orphans with- 
out food and shelter? and she will tell you that a covetous Ahab came and 
not only deprived her of her Naboth, but also of the little vineyard which 
would give her bread. Stop that fatherless and motherless child, who 
shrinks from the wintry wind, and ask why is his bosom uncovered to the 
storm — why are his cold feet unshod, and why is he hungry ? Ask him 
where is his home and where the little inheritance which should feed, 
clothe and sustain him ? and he will tell you that a proud and lordly Ahab 
robbed him of all, and left him alone to all the bitterness of want and the 
ills of poverty. Step into that squalid household, where the damp chill of 
beggary and hunger is shed alike upon father, mother and child, and ask 
why this want, why this cold desolation, this sorrow and these tears ? ask 
Avhy are they so thin, and wan, and wasted ; why do the rains of heaven 
drop down upon their unsheltered heads, and the bleak winds murmur over 
the cold hearth ; ask why that infant cries to its helpless mother in the 
pangs of hunger ; why that icy tear upon the sunken cheek of the mother, 
and why that settled gloom upon the wrinkled brow of the agitated father ? 
They will answer that the spoiler came and robbed — that a Christian Ahab 
came and pitilessly despoiled them of their little inheritance. Come to 
that solitary grave, ask who lies there ? Read the short histoiy recorded 
on the white stone, or listen to the tale of blood, the burden of which sleeps 
in that untimely grave ; ask whose hand struck the blow, or by whose means 
did the murdered one come to his end % The answer will be, that an 
avaricious Ahab had to commit murder before he could possess and enjoy 
the convenient vineyard. Then ask that father or mother, whose form is 
bent beneath the weight of years and a load of grief, why are these con- 



150 



tinual tears and sobs ? you will receive for an answer that the contrivances 
of a Jezebel, the malignity of an Abab, and the perjury of the sons of Belial 
have deprived them, either of a daughter to satisfy the lust of a libertine, or 
of a son to gain the object of the avaricious man's desire. 

My brethren, how exceedingly foolish it is to covet or envy what is 
another's. It is sure to render us discontented with our own state, what- 
ever it may be. If " a contented mind be a continual feast," how much do 
we lose by coveting ? or how much do we gain when our desires are grati- 
fied ? Unjust gains never come up to our expectations. What did Ahab 
gain after he took possession of the vineyard ? Nothing ; but he lost all. 
When the prophet of God met him, just in the act of taking possession, he 
abandoned himself to the greatest terror, because he anticipated his doom. 
What was done in his case, must be done in that of every covetous man. 
" There is nothing new under the sun" — "the thing that hath been, is that 
which shall be." If Ahab found no comfort or satisfaction in the commis- 
sion of iniquity, depend upon it we never will, or else something new must 
happen under the sun— or " the thing that hath been, is not the thing" that 
is " or shall be." Did you ever see a covetous man, whose " eyes were 
satisfied with seeing," or whose " ears were filled with hearing f What, 
may I ask you, are all those things which we so much desire, such as 
riches, influence, power, splendor and fame ? Are they not, in very truth, 
the blandishments, deceits and frauds of fickle fortune, which cheat us in 
possessing, and perish from us in the using ? They, indeed, take a strong 
hold upon the mean and grovelling heart, and they dazzle the careless and 
inconsiderate eye, but after all, experience shows that they are mere impo- 
sitions, mere shadows which will not abide the touch, and which turn to 
ashes at the heart's desire. Think not that the rich and pompous are at 
the climax of their wishes ; think not that every blank of the heart is filled. 
Possessions may ornament life, but they can never soften its realities or 
blunt its thorns. Riches, for a time, may cast a halo of evanescent glory 
around life — they may astonish the vulgar and awe down the indigent and 
unexperienced, but to the man of solitude and calm reflection — to the man 
who seeks eternal happiness, and is in search of true wisdom, they are a 
weight instead of a blessing ; he woidd scorn to droop his upward pinions 
to pick up tinsel which can only glitter in the sunshine, but which cannot, 
be distinguished from any other lustreless tinsel in the dark hour of trial. 

We do not take here an opportunity to disclaim against the vanity or 
advantages of this world's good things, merely because these things are 
beyond our reach — we are not angry with them because we cannot get 
them. Some are in the habit of doing so, but their idle declamations are 
not preaching but prating. We would only impress upon you, that they 
cannot make you as happy as you think they would, aud that, therefore, 



151 



you should not allow yourselves to be carried away by coveting them. The 
sentiments of a great philosopher concerning avarice or covetousness, will 
not be out of place here : " To me, avarice seems not so mucli a vice as a 
deplorable piece of madness. The opinions of theory and positions of men, 
arc not so void of reason as is their practised conclusions. Some have held 
that the snow is black, that the earth moves, that the soul is air, fire, water, 
but all this is philosophy, and there is no delirium, if we do but speculate 
the folly and indisputable dotage of avarice to that subterraneous idol and 
God of the earth." Either this great man must have been in his dotage 
when he wrote the above, or the covetous man must be a fool or madman. 
We grant that it is very praiseworthy and most lawful to take advantage 
of God's, goodness, when he allows us to acquire the comforts, nay the lux- 
uries of life, in order that the asperities and difficulties of it may be some- 
what ameliorated. To love oneself, is a primary law of nature, and no one 
can infringe upon it without doing great violence. Hence, as another 
celebrated writer says : " We ought not to neglect to acquire any good, 
except the possession of it would be incompatible with that of a greater 
good, and we ought not to consent to suffer any ills, except the ending of 
them would prevent greater ills." By this, you will observe, that no good 
can come from covetousness, for all the advantages which it can possibly 
bestow, are incompatible with other greater advantages which pertain to 
eternity. The fruits of dishonesty, however much they may benefit us here, 
will bring upon us the sentence of Ahab in eternity. We are, again, rather 
•to suffer the ills of that state in which God has placed us in this world, in 
order that we may not suffer here and in eternity, the greater ills which 
covetousness would certainly entail, upon us. Go and ask the very posses- 
sors of those things which are the objects of our inordinate desires — let the 
things be as fascinating as may be — these very men will tell you, that a few 
only add but little to their happiness, and that the majority of them arc 
truly what Solomon pronounced them to be — vanity. We can arrive at a 
very proper estimate of the things we have not, by the value of the things 
we have. What great happiness, then, do those things which you now 
possess afford you ? Solomon and our own hearts supply the answer — they 
are vanity. Be not deceived, therefore, with respect to the things you have 
not, because they are exactly of the same nature as the things you have. 
Solomon had them, yet he speaks of them often in the same manner — he 
says these are also vanity. Should you have them, no doubt you would say 
of them as you are compelled to say of what you now have — they are 
vanity. If it were possible for each of us to know and enjoy every condition 
of life, we would say of all, as we are compelled by bitter experience to say 
of those which we now know and enjoy — they are vanity. If we can pro- 
nounce poverty vain and vexatious, and if Solomon could with the same 



152 



truth pronounce riches, pleasure, fame, honor, power and splendor vain and 
vexatious, what is the conclusion but that all is vanity and vexation 
of spirit ? Why, then, should we be disquieting ourselves to procure 
this vanity, by going* beyond the innocent means which God has put within 
our reach to do so ? Why are we so impatient, under the inconveniences 
of our present conditions, as that in our blindness we covet greater incon- 
veniences, which afar off seem to be dressed in good and ease ? The differ- 
ence between the amount of happiness in poverty and that in wealth, is 
only an imagination — a fraudulent dream — the poor man is as happy as 
the rich. It only requires contentment, calmness and tranquillity in any 
condition of life to render us happy. It only requires avidity in the acqui- 
sition of more than we now enjoy-— a covetous spirit, a discontented heart, 
to embitter all the blessings vouchsafed to us in any state of life. Cannot 
Ave, therefore, see the wisdom of this law in making contentment a duty, 
and covetousness a crime ! Cannot we feel an unseen hand turning our 
faces to what is past, and thereby warning us of what is to come ? Cannot 
we hear in it the voice of eternal truth, saying to us that the same vicissi- 
tudes, the same sorrows, the same pains, and the same melancholy end will 
overtake us in whatever condition we are in ? Each of us now, if we could 
but suffer ourselves to know it, could taste many of the sweets of life, and 
enjoy many a real blessing which our discontent robs us of. Let us, there- 
fore, henceforth endeavor to take a lesson from the fowls of the air, that 
neither reap nor gather into barns. Let us cease taking that covetous heed 
for our lives, " what we shall eat, or what we shall drink, or wherewithal 
shall we be clothed." The fowls are fed, but we are of greater value than 
they are. How is it, then, that we are in so much trouble ? Are we not 
assured that if we seek first " the kingdom of God and His righteousness, 
all these things shall be added unto us?" and are we not moreover assured, 
that "the morrow will take thought of the things of itself?" Why should 
we look upon our neighbor with envy, when we profess a religion which 
teaches that charity which coveteth not ? It is the very surest evidence of a 
lively faith, to have learned to be content in any state God is pleased to 
put us, for no true Christian will murmur against His providence by mani- 
festing impatience. It is also a sure evidence of fidelity to our profession, 
if it be our study to be quiet — " to do our own business, and to work with 
our hands as we are commanded, that we may walk honestly and lack 
nothing." The conclusion, then, of the whole matter is this : that " our 
conversation be without covetousness, and we be content with such things as 
we have," because the infallible God of truth hath promised that " He will 
never leave us nor forsake us," and that should we connect contentment 
with godliness, we will find it here and hereafter, a great gain. 



